


And I met you in the rain

by Redfire_Dragon



Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Fluff, Cute fluffy cuteness, Cybertronian Twins, F/M, Hypothermia, Jazz and Prowl are bros, Jazz is a small god of mischief, Logic Prowl keeps track of ALL the numbers, Logic vs Emotion, Love is slow, MINIBOTS!, Prowl gets to be a hero in a small way, Prowl its okay to be happy, Prowl needs a hug, Sheesh, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, the bro-iest, then more fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2018-12-04 21:31:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 77,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11563737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redfire_Dragon/pseuds/Redfire_Dragon
Summary: Made for Madlennox, who requested my dreaming Prowl to meet the girl who had been haunting his dreams (see my "Dreaming is Better than Waking" story set) because I poisoned them with adorableness.Yes I can write cute stuff too.Also I have noooooooo clue what I'm doooooing O.oThis story wouldn't have been possible without all the lovely feedback of my readers here. Many kudos to all of you.





	1. In the Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [madlennox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madlennox/gifts).



> Can you write a 3rd person reader insert fic? Challenge accepted

It was cold and wet, rain dripping down from the unrelentingly gloomy sky above. The woman shivered water dripping down from the hood of her coat into her face. The coat was designed to be waterproof but enough rain had fallen on her sorry self during the heavier downfall earlier that the garment had become completely saturated and now served only to weigh her down. An hour ago she had been soaked through. Now? Her tired mind couldn't come up with proper descriptors so she had to settle for miserable. Cold, wet, exhausted, and miserable. Just like this dreadful day.

A car zipped through a sizable puddle to her left sending a wave of frigid water over her. She swore under her breath. It hadn't made her more wet, that was no longer possible, but now what little body heat had remained to her was gone. She was going to freeze to death.

Straight up freeze.

To Death.

She sighed, she was being overly dramatic, and forced her numb feet to keep moving. She still had such a long way to go. One by one the street lamps were coming on. How had it gotten so late? She stumbled letting out a whimper of pain.

She didn't notice the car slowly rolling along beside her until she heard the voice. "Miss, do you need a ride?" Gentle, male, faintly concerned.

She shivered and rolled her eyes. "Yeah sure, I am totally going to hop into some stranger's car. No, I'm fine, I'm cold not stupid." She growled continuing to trudge on. The annoyance was almost enough to warm her, but not quite.

The car continued to pace her silently, pulling just slightly ahead so the open passenger door was just abreast her, warm air wafting out toward her enticingly. Beautifully warm. Jerk.

"You have to be the second worst liar I have ever met." The driver said, a faint wry tease to his voice.

"Oh shut up." She said flushing with embarrassment and annoyance. "Shove off."

But still he persisted, matching her stumbling pace with his door still stubbornly open to let those small wisps of hot air extend their siren call to her through the pattering rain. What was he doing? Just lurking? How long would he follow her? She lifted her tired gaze to examine the car. A police car, bright and trim, white on top black on the lower half. Almost austere, the paint shining with water in the light of the street lamps. Other cars passed him and yet he persisted, interior dark.

"Hop in the back. I'll take you home." He insisted firmly, voice edged with concern.

It was stupid, moronic really, but she was freezing and hurt in all the places not entirely numbed by the cold, and that dark interior was so warm. She stopped and the vehicle did as well. Well he _was_ a police officer. "I must be crazy." She grumbled and turned.

The passenger seat was pulled forward obscuring the driver but opening the way to the back. She crawled in over it and settled into the bucket seat behind, the warmth of the cab almost intolerably hot to her freezing body. She let out a pained moan, shucking off her sodden coat onto the seat next to her to let the hot air reach more of her skin. She considered apologizing for the wet but he had known what condition she was in when he had invited her into his car. Gods she was tired. The passenger seat was returned to its upright position and shifted back just far enough to lock in place, leaving her as much foot space as possible.

She kicked off her shoes as the passenger door closed softly, not noticing that the driver's door didn't open then close to allow the driver back in who had assumedly walked around the car to adjust the seat and close the door. She was too busy peeling her sodden socks off, letting out another pained moan as the hot air brushed the numb skin making it tingle painfully. Maybe she really _had_ been freezing to death. No, she smiled faintly, she wouldn't be that lucky, just pain and misery.

But she had been lucky enough to be rescued by this kind hearted policeman who had taken pity on her plight. Heaven and earth it felt good to be out of the rain and somewhere warm. She should have felt boxed in crammed into the back seat of the small vehicle as she was, but instead it was somewhat comforting to be in that snug dim space. She felt safe, her exposed skin finally dry and starting to adjust to the heat of the air. How could she feel so safe in a stranger's vehicle? This had to be just about the stupidest thing she had ever done but she had been, still was, exhausted. She felt almost drunk on the warmth, mind hazy with it.

"You must buckle up before we can go."

Buckle up? Oh right, seat belt. Her cold tingling fingers were clumsy but at least they were no longer numb. It took a while to fastened it but her rescuer was patient. Rescuer, ha. But then again what kidnapper would worry about her buckling up? She felt herself relaxing slowly. The engine hummed softly and the car began moving again so smoothly she could hardly feel it. She was tempted to pull off her soaked shirt and pants so she could dry off and warm up faster but no, there were limits.

Oh it felt glorious to be somewhere warm.

"What is your address?"

"Hmm?" it was getting hard to think and after a pause he repeated the question. Oh right, home. She gave him her address and snuggled into the warm seat, wet clothing warming as the hot air caressed her shivering body. Slowly, painfully, beautifully, slowly, the heat sank in through her skin, wearing away at the cold that had sunk into her bones. Listening to the gentle purr of the engine, wrapped in that soft warm darkness, she drifted off to sleep.

 

 

  
Prowl drove slowly and carefully, calculations running constantly in the back of his processor to maximize the smoothness of the drive. Each acceleration or deceleration, each turn carefully executed. But his attention was on the young female human in his backseat. Her body temperature had finally risen out of the danger zone and, by the slow steady beat of her heart and the length and frequency of her breaths, it was clear that she had fallen asleep. He was no doctor but it seemed she would recover fully, even her once freezing toes now warm, curled slightly against his seat.

No permanent damage, she was safe.

Again Prowl checked his sensors and reviewed the data he had collected earlier.

Conclusion: it was her, the human female he had previously glimpsed four times in this city and twice in another twenty miles directly North, and who had, since his second sighting of her, haunted his dreams.

98.736% Accuracy rating.

Just like the previous 138 times he had run the data (though the accuracy rating had been lower the first six times as he had still been working to collect all the identifying data his sensors could pick up).

Logic demanded that he accept that it really was her, accept the evidence of his own sensors, but it seemed so impossible. Spurred by that thought his battle computer began calculating the probability of this outcome; her, a damp bedraggled mess curled up asleep in his backseat on this cold rainy evening. Prowl quickly terminated the calculation and shunted his battle computer's processor speed back to optimizing his course before it could stall again, or worse, crash as it had nearly done earlier when he had first spotted her, sensors quickly mapping out form and features, comparing it to the data collected during the six previous times he had caught sight of her.

He had just been driving through the small city at the end of patrol (he frequently arranged things so he was the one who patrolled the sector that contained it after the dreams began) allowing himself to enjoy the gentle pattering of earth's harmless rain on his exterior as he headed back to base, when he'd seen the soaked shrouded pedestrian get doused by a car passing her by through a puddle. There had been hardly a passerby all this wet day (6) and all had been carrying umbrellas, none so sodden or so cold. Indeed it had been as he had been checking that unusually low temperature with an internal frown that he had gotten a glimpse of the female's face and recognized her. He had not expected to see her this day, not with the rain that humans tended to avoid in busier places and enjoy in more relaxed settings, though rarely during so cold a season. His battle computer had started calculating the probability while he had done his best to get a good look at her, gathering as much data as he could before he passed on the other side of the street.

Soon he had doubled back and followed just behind her, preventing any more vehicles from splashing her. He knew following people, stalking, wasn't right (at least not without probable cause) but at the same time it was his duty, the mission of all Autobots, to protect human life. And her body temperature had been very low, and still dropping as she staggered along, shivering and sighing. Humans had a strong instinct for survival so it seemed unlikely that she would continue in the cold and wet until it killed her. And yet...

But was this all just because of the inessential groundless emotional attachments he had permitted a place to grow inside him? Was he doing this, following her and letting worry flicker within him, simply out of a misguided feeling of kinship? He was already struggling with the illogical urge to scan her over and over as best his sensors could, calculating her exact dimensions under the sodden coat to compare with the data gathered previously sans coat in more casual, less obscuring garments. A quiet part of him wanted to memorize every detail, this being the first time he had been able to observe her for more than a brief moment, while another larger part struggled to accept the idea that it really was her, of all the humans of the earth he could have encountered. But no, his first instinct had been to ensure the human was in no danger before he had even identified the cold ragged figure as female, much less... her. A strange tickle had gone through his frame at the thought, the sort of thing he did not tolerate in himself in the waking world.

Hypothermia. There was the file he had been searching for, the source of nagging doubt that the female was in true danger. Cold, especially combined with wet, water's high specific heat allowing it to sap the living heat from a human far more effectively than the cold could alone, caused the victim to slow until they stopped altogether, never to move again. Insidious it could claim a human's life before they realized the danger. True she was still moving and her temperature hadn't dropped quite into the danger zone but the numbers still trickled, spiraling downward before his optics. He started to weigh his options then stopped, he already knew what he wanted and excused it with the (very logical) excuse that someone suffering hypothermia needed to be warmed up as immediately as possible.

Prowl cranked up his heater running scenarios, possible words he could use. He didn't know why she was out here walking in the damp rainy dark but she had been stumbling along for hours it was clear, too stubborn to seek shelter.

0.013% Probability she would seek needed shelter if left her her own devices.

He felt a tiny flicker of pride in her dogged determination to reach her destination but didn't she have a vehicle of her own, or friend or family to help her? It was unlikely (0.006% probability) she would reach her destination before the cold overwhelmed her.

Prowl abruptly realized he was stalling, he had already determined his course of action several minutes (4.183) before. He would have preferred to identify the cause as being worry but he knew what it really was. Fear. He was afraid, deep in his spark, and of her of all things. Prowl, proud Autobot warrior, who faced Decepticons and even Megatron himself on an almost weekly basis, was afraid of a sodden, freezing human female. Pathetic.

But this was the real world, no dream, what happened stayed. Any mistake would stick. Those foolish dreams. After endless millennia being shot, scorched, beaten down, stomped on, kicked, stabbed, torn apart, and blown up, his spark was the only part of him left that still felt truly vulnerable. And those beautiful but ultimately pointless dreams had left him exposed, emotionally invested in a stranger.

His emotions were taut but having acknowledged them Prowl was now able to set them aside (as he should) and proceed with the task at hand. "Miss, do you need a ride?" He asked offering an opened door. Her refusal was unsurprising, few were so foolhardy as to climb into a stranger's vehicle, indeed he'd have thought less of her if she'd accepted so easily. Her somewhat sarcastic reply brought a half smile to him. That miserable and still an ornery sass? He wondered what she would act like well and warm.

That quenched some of his humor and he pulled a bit forward in his slow roll and blew heated air out his open door at her. Instinctively she started drifting closer before stopping herself with a scowl. Step two of his plan was working well. It was like coaxing a wild animal, you needed bait and silence, stillness. Soon, with the help of an innocuous comment and quiet persistence the numbers and parameters he was monitoring lined up to what he had calculated would be optimal circumstances for his next attempt "Hop in the back. I'll take you home." He said with well measured insistence, having calculated that a kind but firm command would best play on her exhaustion and her yearning for the warmth and shelter from the rain he offered.

Now she was inside him, half curled into a damp but warm ball in his backseat, sleeping peacefully. Safe. He refused to let himself think of what would have happened if he hadn't found her earlier. If he had not taken that road at that time on his way back to base... and worst of all he never would have known, accepting not seeing her again as chance or an indication she had moved. He never would have allowed himself to seek her out, inessential as such a task was to his logical ordered mind. Her light would have gone out this night and he never would have known. Instead he ended up carrying the woman who haunted his dreams. A statistical outlier like this could only be a gift from Primus himself, yet Prowl couldn't help but feel his god was playing a joke on him as well. Logic had brought him to this point but her presence, her soft warm body snuggled against his upholstery, filled him with all sorts of feelings and illogical thoughts. And there was a wanting too, a deep wanting he could not analyze. Useless desires, unnecessary and a danger to his personal efficiency. Indulging in dreams was one thing, they did not decrease the efficacy of recharge and did not waste valuable time, but while he was up and running? Unacceptable. He had duties, responsibilities.

She was just as lovely as in his dreams, more so because this was real, she was real. Soft delicate skin, slender rounded limbs so different from the bulky boxy frames of transformers, long hair somewhat messy from her ordeal. She seemed so fragile, like a delicate mesh of crystal, and a part of that could be explained by the danger to her life earlier, but it was more than that. Her quiet peaceful breathing, her slow steady heartbeat tickling the sensors of his interior, the growing warmth that was finally starting to emit from her. Perfect, she was perfect, completely and utterly _illogically_ perfect.

Prowl realized that he was humming softly with happiness, his engine purring in contentment. Normally he would have been embarrassed by the breach in protocol and deftly corrected it, now?

There was a silent tug-of-war between processor and spark about the whole situation. Was it unnecessary? Perhaps. There had been other options to save the girl without allowing himself to become so involved. But was it inconsequential? Never. No matter what he might think or reason he knew in his spark he would treasure this time for the entirety of his function.

Her core body temperature (rather than just the surface) had returned to normal 8.312 minutes ago and was radiating a gentle warmth of its own. He had adjusted the temperature of his interior so as to remain comfortable for her but he knew in his spark what that meant. It was time to take her home.

It had taken some time (12.376 minutes) to find her address on the maps in his database, in part because he was so distracted by her presence and preoccupied with driving as smoothly as possible but also because it was so far (for someone walking) from the business district where he had found her. ~~His human~~  (he edited that thought quickly) _The_ human certainly was stubborn to attempt to walk the whole way in the freezing rain from wherever she had started her journey. Driving there had been simple enough but he had been wandering the streets nearby for quite a while (48.932 minutes) to allow her to warm up fully before he dropped her off. Part of the reasoning was logical, she had been foolish enough to catch hypothermia out of stubbornness alone, there was a good chance (62.374% probability) that she would not take proper care of herself when she got to her place of residence. The bulk of the reason though was the simple (albeit nervous) joy and reverence he felt to have her with him. She was adorable sleeping. He couldn't help but wonder if his emotional desires were skewing his calculations. He would have to run self diagnostics when he got back to base.

Prowl backed carefully into the driveway and paused, supposedly to decide how best to wake her but really just wanting to snatch just a few more minutes with her. Enough foolishness. Prowl straightened, shifting to a more businesslike demeanor. It almost instantly melted under the warmth of her peaceful presence and his own nervousness to speak to her, of his words being clumsy and inexpressive. Interpersonal relations were hard. He tried again and managed to calm himself enough to move forward.

Prowl gave her seat belt a stiff double tug to shake her a bit. The move was successful as she stirred slightly. "Miss we are here. Time to get up." She made an incoherent sound starting to settle back and Prowl did the double tug on the seat belt again and spoke louder. "Miss wake up. We are here, your place of residence."

"Hmmm?" Delicate eyelids flickered in the darkness and she straightened looking around in sleepy confusion. She turned her gaze out the window where streetlights illuminated the scene. "Oh we're home." Prowl felt his spark squeeze oddly. "I mean, I'm home." She shook her head and gave an embarrassed smile. "Sorry I must've been more tired than I thought dozing off like that. Thanks for the lift, you really saved my bacon er something." She said pulling on her damp but warm shoes socks and coat. He wished he could have waited until she had completely dried but he felt he had already been pushing the limits of what was appropriate. He opened his passenger door, letting cool air trickle in along with the dogged patter of the soft rainfall. She looked over at his passenger door in muggy confusion then over to his driver's seat and Prowl felt a fearful tingle go through him even before she asked "How'd you do that?"

In the dark and with his interior light off she had not noticed his lack of driver before. Emotions tangled, nervousness, the feeling of being exposed, fear of rejection, a deep painful desire for her acceptance, for her to _see_ him. So many and so _much_. "It's automatic?" He offered with a faint nervous quaver as he internally cursed his inability to come up with something better. All these emotions were clouding his processor.

She seemed to accept the words, giving a small nod, but hesitated a while longer as cool moist air filled his interior, squinting her eyes as she tried to penetrate the gloom to see the drive she assumed was there. "Car light been broken long?"

"No it's just off." He had difficulty keeping his voice calm and even as his nervousness rose.

She gave him a sleepy half smirk of a smile. "You're shy." She teased and Prowl felt a flush of embarrassment creep through him one circuit at a time. He shifted slightly on his tires. "Cummon, don't I get to see the face of my rescuer?" She leaned forward and for a moment he feared she was going to reach out into the empty space where a driver would have been if he had been an actual police car. She didn't and Prowl remained silent a while, watching as disappointment started to steal away her mirth.

"It's late miss, time we both went home." Prowl hated the words, he felt like a coward trying to sneak away from the moment of realization he feared. He'd had a dream where she had feared him and, illogical though it was, his fear of that becoming a reality had bound him tight though it was quickly unraveling into a sorrowful mess from the tugging of regret and desperate foolish desires. He tried to calculate the odds but he was being pulled in far too many directions.

"Please?"

"Even with the light I doubt you would see me." And it was the truest thing. Organics were funny about machines, how would she be able to see him past the wires and circuitry? Illogical. Many humans had accepted Transformers as true people rather than mundane machines.

She climbed out silently and took the edge of his door in one hand making the sensitive sensors tingle. She said something.

"What?"

"My name." She said and repeated it then directed a gentle smile to his driver's seat. Oh it was such a lovely name. Illogical, just another human name. Emotional, it was beautiful for who it belonged to. Beauty didn't have to be logical.

"Prowl." He knew what was expected and was faintly annoyed at her snort.

"Okay Mister Mysterious, don't tell me."

"It really is my name." He huffed. "It is not so unusual where I am from."

"A foreigner then?" She seemed genuinely interested, in a tired way, and it made his spark flicker with uncertain excitement. Possibilities bloomed in his mind and he crushed them, derailing each process before it could develop into hopes, or worse, expectations. Such things were unnecessary distractions.

"Well, thank you Prowl." She said and closed his door with a flick of her wrist and a mild slam. Then she was heading toward her residence. Prowl stayed stock still, running a quick check that her temperature was still within normal parameters (it was) as she vanished inside. He realized he was humming softly again, a warm glow deep inside his spark as he replayed her words over and over again. She'd said his name, his name.

And now he knew hers.

Now he knew what he had wanted to desperately before. True she hadn't a clue as to his true nature, but now he knew her name, and she knew his. That alone filled him with more joy than could possibly be explained by any amount of logic.


	2. On Base

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl is always efficient and the model of professionalism. Some almost forget he is there as he so perfectly does all his duties quietly ignored.
> 
> But still they start to notice an unnerving change

"Was that Prowl?"

"Did you see him?"

"Did you see it?"

"See it? Did you hear?"

Whispers were following him more lately. Numbers tickled through his processor on the phenomena largely ignored as Prowl focused on the datapad in his hand, ticking at it with a stylus, reviewing reports. Wheeljack was running low on parts for his incessant experiments and wanted to have Bumblebee pick some more up. Prowl reviewed the list of parts and supplies, battle computer humming as it ran countless numbers and projections, analyzing each item on the list individually and in probable groupings cross referenced with current supplies. He then approved as many items as he dared.

Wheeljack's inventions were of great help (65.362% increase in efficiency in battle 48.792% increase in efficiency medical) but their tendency to literally blow up in the inventor's face (73.987% of the time to date) prompted Optimus to give Prowl the (impossible) task of trying to keep the explosions to a minimum by quietly keeping the most dangerous components, singular and in combination, out of Wheeljack's grasp. It was an interesting challenge, requiring a bit of research at times to even attempt, and there was very little he could do to predict Wheeljack, but explosion occurrences were down 7.364% since he'd started, and the damage of said explosions were down by 21.631%. Cost/benefit analysis of the plan, however, was still pending, awaiting further data.

Prowl put in a note for Tracks to accompany Bumblebee on the supply run, ignoring a tickle of an urge to go himself and stop by... no. Business, not personal. But even that flicker brightened his mood. Not actually thinking of her, but just the taste of thoughts leading toward her was sweet, even if he terminated them before they could get that far.

Prowl moved on to the next item. Red Alert wanted to install two more cameras to cover the main entrance to the Ark. With a silent internal sigh Prowl reran the calculations, re-analyzing the coverage of their current camera setup. All angles were covered, the visuals overlapping to form a continuous view of the entire three dimensional space, two carefully angled to cover the ceiling. No more cameras were needed and the extra screens to monitor would only add to the strain on Red Alert's processor. Prowl tapped the stylus on the side of the datapad as he walked, trying to formulate a response that said no  _without_  sending their head of security into either a panic attack or a fit of anger.

Ahead he heard a clanging and his doorwings automatically lifted slightly, angling further away from his torso as the sensors activated fully. Volume tone frequency spacing floor vibrations. In a moment (0.253 seconds) the data was analyzed and he knew it was Optimus Prime, charging out of the command room down the main hall at full tilt carrying someone. Prowl lifted his optics, coming smoothly to a stop, as the Autobot leader approached at a full sprint, Bumblebee clamped under one arm like a human's football. It was an odd habit the Prime had picked up here on earth. The first time it happened Prowl suffered a near fatal error, processor unable to accept the evidence of his own optical sensors, and had reawoken hours later in the medbay with an awful processor ache. Now he simply iterated the count (18 observed occurrences subject: Bumblebee). At least Bumblebee seemed to like it, though the small bot had seemed terrified the first time (as far as Prowl could reconstruct from the damaged files of that first incident) and rather puzzled the first few after that. But, like everything else, Bumblebee had taken it in cheerful stride. It must be nice to be so carefree.

The behavior pattern seemed to be spurred by the spike of adrenaline triggered by the appearance of danger, real or imagined. If Prowl didn't know better he'd think part of it was just mischief. A couple months (3 months 16 days) ago the Prime had spent an entire week sulking in his berthroom because he'd tried the same with Brawn and the mech had shattered Optimus's battlemask (and mashed his face) so badly in retaliation that Ratchet had to construct a new one from scratch. Two months (and three days) later the Prime had nearly trampled Prowl in one of the narrower corridors carrying Jazz this time (who was, of course, egging the Prime on) chased by a very angry Ratchet yelling about anual checkups. 28.312% probability mischief was another trigger of this behavior, far higher than Prowl was comfortable with coming from their generally serious leader.

"Prowl! Decepticons are" Optimus broke off and stared at Prowl, mask shifting in that ever so subtle way that indicated his jaw had dropped. Under his arm Bumblebee was openly gaping at him. "Prowl?" The Prime asked uncertainly as Prowl's optics bore into his. "Are you...?"

Honestly, they saw each other several times a day, and most of those time he was working no different from now. They had no reason to stare at him as if he were a monster from one of those human movies. Though he tried to keep it down he could feel his doorwings hiking up slowly in distress as his systems went to high alert. After waiting exactly 5 strained seconds for the flabbergasted Autobot leader to continue Prowl spoke up. "The Decepticons are doing what Optimus?"

"Oh, yes, Decepticons..." Optimus trailed off then rebooted his optics giving his helm a small shake. "Prowl" He pointed at his SiC with his free hand. "Assemble all availible Autobots and meet me at the entrance, the Decepticons must be stopped!" He said in his best leader voice.

Prowl saluted sharply, pivoting on one pede and moving off at a fast walk. He never ran unless absolutely necessary but his long quick strides moved him quite swiftly along his way. So swiftly even his highly sensitive audio receptors almost missed Bumblebee's whispered words. "Are my transistors going faulty or was Prowl _smiling_?"

  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

  
The young woman drummed her fingers on the counter. "What do you mean you don't have anyone working here named Prowl?"

The young man behind the counter gave a deep sigh. "I mean, _we don't have anyone working here named Prowl_." He repeated.

The woman sighed running a hand through messy hair. It had been hard enough getting them to believe it wasn't some prank she was playing on them, like she was stupid enough to pull the leg of a police officer. (Ah, said a sneaky voice in the back of her mind, but you did tease that one... that Prowl) And now they acted like _she_ was the crazy one. "Are you sure?" She asked half distressed half still lingeringly hopeful.

The young man gave her an intent stare but buckled under the weight of her pathetic earnestness. His fingers danced across the keyboard and clicked at the mouse. "No ma'am, I'm sorry." He turned back to her. "There are no police officers stationed here, or even employed by the county by that name." He paused a moment. "I think who ever it was was yanking your chain." He said a faint twinkle of humor in his blue blue eyes.

"Yeah... that's what I thought at first too." She muttered and sighed again.

"I probably shouldn't do this, but maybe if you give me a description I could point you in the right direction at least?" He offered, disliking to be a cause of so much distress to such a pretty young woman.

"Yeah well that would be great 'cept I didn't actually get a good look at him." She thought back to that night, was it only last week? Cold and dark and wet, but so warm in his car, warm and safe. And she'd tried to see him through the darkness but she'd hardly been able to make out even a shape in the darkness. She had just been so tired, had fallen asleep as soon as she had collapsed on her bed, but now she wished she had pushed just a little harder to see him.

Prowl. Such a strange strange name.

Really it shouldn't have been such a big deal. She'd been stupid, had to walk home in the freezing rain, and some nice police officer had stepped in and saved her sorry hide. Embarrassing yes, so sooner left forgotten right? Except she hadn't been able to forget. She'd found her mind wandering back to him, his slightly odd sounding voice, the patience, the worry, how formal and odd he'd been. But more than anything, she remembered that strange feeling of safety. Sure you were supposed to feel safe around police officers but that didn't mean you did. Getting into his car like that, she'd been a wreck with cold and exhaustion, not in her right mind, she was probably just lucky he had turned out to be as harmless as he had acted.

So why was it she kept thinking back to that? Life should have moved on, day in day out, go to work, go home, rinse and repeat. And yet his strange words came back to her at the oddest times. 'Even if you saw me you wouldn't see me' he'd said, or something like it, the details were frustratingly hazy while still stubbornly coming up time and again. Why had he been so shy for her to see him? Scars? Did he think she wouldn't see him past the scars? Or he was foreign, did he think he looked too funny? or was of some, what, nationality that had a terrible reputation or something? If that was it he clearly didn't get the whole "American melting pot" thing, but if he had such a weird name, and he'd said it was normal where he came from, that meant first generation right? Born elsewhere, who knew how long he'd been in America if that were the case.

Stupid curiosity, it wasn't her business, and now she was sort of wishing she hadn't come here to see if she could hunt down her mysterious (and no, she was not going to consider that mess romantic of all things) rescuer. Now... well either he had been playing her or he wasn't an actual police officer, and she couldn't decide which was worse.

"Ma'am?"

Oh right, the guy helping her. "Do you have any officers with really bad facial scars?"

"Excuse me?" Crap. She could tell from his expression that that was exactly the wrong thing to say.

"Sorry, I mean, he wouldn't let me see his face, so I thought... ya know what? Forget it. Thanks for your time, I'm outta here." She spun on her heel and headed for the door feeling like an idiot, face flushed with embarrassment. Now the guy thought she was some weird 'I really dig scars' creep, not that she was overly against scars, I mean, they could be

UGH! what was wrong with her? Better to just forget this whole thing. It was a one time, totally bizarre thing, sooner she forgot about it, the sooner her life would be back to normal. Back to sort-of-depressing normal. No, life was good, her life was good. It wasn't perfect but it was good. Lots of good things. Including some weird sort-of-but-maybe-not-really-a-cop guy who had saved her from a very miserable night and no doubt a nasty case of pneumonia.

Oh well, better just to forget any of this happened.

Hopefully she could.

  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

  
"DECEPTICONS! RETREAT!" Megatron roared and turned, taking to the sky, his Decepticons following.

Prowl let out a sigh of relief, one echoed by most of the Autobots. Optimus Prime though was still staring after the Decepticons, almost shaking with the urge to continue, to fight, to chase down the enemy and end it once and for all. But there were injured to attend to and they could not catch the airborne Decepticons. Optimus turned to his Autobots and looked them over. "Prowl."

Prowl ran a quick check. "All alive and accounted for. Windcharger's rear axle is broken and he can't transform. Jazz's left arm is broken in two places. Brawn was knocked offline but he still functions. All the rest is relatively minor injuries." He reported, voice smooth and efficient. He could see how upset the Prime was and how the tension around his optics eased when he heard that Brawn was still with them.

"I hesitate to say good with so many injured but we all made it out alive and the Decepticons were unable to steal the formula. Good work everyone, transform and roll out." Optimus Prime said, transforming as he did so, his trailer appearing as it always did.

"Sahrry Prahm, I dun think I can transform quite yet." Jazz piped up, giving it a try and wincing at the crunching sounds in his arm.

"Very well. Prowl, help get Jazz and Windcharger loaded up in the back. Ratchet will take Brawn."

"Yes Optimus Prime." Prowl said as he and Huffer finished loading the unconscious Brawn into the ambulance.

Jazz gave a huff. "Ah might not be able to drahve but Ah can still walk Prime." He protested, getting into Optimus's trailer and sitting on the floor of what was essentially a metal box on wheels.

"Would you stop humming?" Huffer said, turning to glare at Prowl.

Prowl blinked slowly. "What?"

"That infernal humming!" The minibot puffed. "Our friends are injured and you are humming like some... some... Ragh!" Huffer threw up his arms in frustration then stomped away, transforming then racing off.

Prowl stared after him, processor reeling. Humming? Him? Had he really been humming? His battle computer came to life whirring desperately to compute, rushing toward a crash...

Irrelevant. Prowl managed to terminate the process before it could get away with him. Humming or not, it did not matter.

He went over to help Windcharger but the bot shook him off. "He's right you know, its really creepy for you to smile and hum like that when things are going so rough." He paused to scowl at Prowl a moment. "You know, things might be easy for you because of that battle computer of yours but battle is hard enough on the rest of us without you being so.. so..." He hesitated searching for the right word to describe Prowl's behavior " _weird_." He said and accepted Jazz's offered hand, letting the larger bot pull him up into the trailer.

Okay, maybe not so irrelevant then. Prowl frowned, better able to accept the problem the second time around, he didn't want to make things harder on his fellow Autobots. He flicked through his memories and realized that he _had_ been humming. A little bit during the battle (two occurrences: 28 seconds approx total time) and while he had been helping get Brawn loaded up after (9 seconds approx), and he hadn't even consciously noticed. Jazz started to say something but the back of the trailer slammed shut and the Autobots were rolling out in convoy. Prowl waited a bit, watching to double check everyone was accounted for and successfully heading home, before transforming. His right doorwing has been somewhat damaged in the fight and it hurt like all pit but he could drive just fine. He would have to get it looked at after Ratchet had helped those with serious injuries.

A quiet name drifted into his mind, a pleasant whisper. Her name. He noticed a small vibration in his vocalizer and realized that he was humming again. Sure enough a quick scan of his files confirmed that the incidents of humming were linked to brief flashes of memory of her, all without consciously realizing it. Odd. Disturbing even. This shouldn't be a problem, but it had the potential to become one (78.154% probability). He would have to get his logic circuits checked too, just in case.


	3. Escalation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hm... it looks like Prowl's relationship with the other Autobots is... strained. Lets find out why.
> 
> I realized that I'm writing all this stuff, all about Prowl and the Autobots, but nothing for the reader herself x.x  
> Ugh, I tried to fix that, I hope I'm not killing it :(

Prowl was working quietly in his office. It was one of the states he preferred to be in in his chaotic life. Peace. Quiet. Work.

The door whooshed open and Jazz sauntered in. "Prowl! You didn even come see me in the medbay! Ah'm starting to think you dun love me anymore." The TiC teased walking over and taking a seat on Prowl's desk.

"Get off my desk Jazz." Prowl said without looking up. Though his doorwings had flared up the moment the door had opened, well tuned sensors identifying the intruder in a moment (0.194 seconds), he had otherwise ignored the other.

"Aww come on, you love it when Ah'm on your desk." Jazz said leaning back, helm tilted backward until he could look at Prowl upside down.

"No. I don't. I have told you this several million times." Prowl said simply, voice cold with irritation. (3,493,293 times, it never made any difference.)

"Nah, Ah'm sure you've never said it afore." Jazz was grinning like an earth cat when Prowl finally lifted his optics to meet those hidden by the TiC's glowing blue visor.

Prowl sighed setting down the datapad he was working on. He was too tired and stressed to play this game, his battle computer running simulations of the last battle over and over. How much had his humming distracted the others? Would Windcharger have avoided injury if Prowl hadn't distracted him with that infernal humming? Would he have reacted to Skywarp's sudden appearance, teleporting and dive-bombing Brawn, that 0.5 seconds faster that would have allowed him to get Brawn out of the way if his subconscious hadn't been on other things? His processor ached. "What do you want Jazz?"

Jazz's face had gone impassive, the visor's glow dimming slightly in true concern. Prowl never folded that easy. "Damn Prowl, they hurt you that bad?"

Prowl snorted. Hurt by their words? Please. "I am unharmed."

"Dun lie to me. Ah can see your damaged panel from here."

Prowl's damaged doorwing angled downward automatically, sweeping the damaged edge below the level of the desk and out of sight. "The damage is not crippling. I will report to medical this evening or tomorrow morning." He said stiffly, he had been pretty certain (93.847%) Jazz hadn't been talking about physical injury.

"And they hurt yer feelings so much yah can't even get it looked at yet cuz that would require facing them at the medbay."

Prowl felt a low growl well up inside him and cut the annoyance before it could get away from his control, the growl dissipating before it could become audible. Was it because he was implying Prowl feared to face the scorn of the others or because he worried Jazz was right? A sick feeling pooled in his fuel tank. "I am fine Jazz." He insisted anyway.

"Better than fine, before they ragged on you at least. Ah saw you earlier, you were happy." Jazz's voice was dead serious, the glow of his visor intense.

Happy. Her name drifted through his processor again. His doorwings slackened slightly in defeat. "Maybe... maybe a little." He admitted.

"HA!" Jazz slammed one hand down on the desk hard enough it would have made Prowl jump, if the other's numbers hadn't seen it coming. Jazz was on the floor, turned around, with both hands flat on the desk leaning over it toward Prowl with a wicked grin on his face in a moment (0.395 seconds). "Tell." He ordered gleefully.

Prowl considered for a while. Jazz was his best and oldest friend, and, as head of special ops, a keeper of secrets. Jazz was also an incurable gossip, and loved the spotlight. But he was also fiercely loyal.

Probability 39.193% Jazz would keep this secret scenario 1  
Probability 64.159% scenario 2  
Probability 73.204% scenario 3  
Probability 18.363% scenario 4  
Probability 48.603% scena

"Tell me the numbers Prowl." Jazz interrupted smiling smugly. Jazz could always see through him these days.

Prowl sighed, three it was then. "73.204%."

"Sounds pretty good. Though if the percent is that high you must still be planning to hide a lot." He paused a moment a thoughtful look coming over him. "Or this is more serious than it seems. Which scenario?"

"Three, I only got to calculating number five before you interrupted."

"Well five is far too many anyway. So tell, dun keep me waiting."

"I've been having... dreams."

"What? Do tell." The mech drawled voice flat, almost disgusted. The light behind Jazz's visor rolled up and around reflecting the motion of the optics behind. This was clearly not the juicy secret he had been hoping for.

"More lately." Prowl insisted "Good ones. It's... nice." He could feel his doorwings vibrating slightly, a wistful twinge in his voice.

"Aaaaaaaaaannnd?"

"And I've been letting personal matters interfere with my work." Prowl said, straightening his posture. "The others were right to-"

"No they weren't." Jazz insisted. "It's fine for you to be happy."

"But not in a way that is distracting or harmful to others Jazz." Prowl said flatly. "I have my purpose. I will not let personal feelings or circumstances interfere. I'll... I've already been setting up different protocols to help... manage things."

"Ah do so hope you don't mean delete. Ifn your having some nice stuff you should keep it. You deserve it after all yah've been through." Jazz reached out and touched Prowl's helm softly. Prowl offlined his optics and let his head tilt forward ever so slightly into the touch. "Don't listen to the others, they're just surprised is all. They'll be happy for yeh too, you'll see."

Prowl pulled away, forcing the movement to be slow and smooth instead of the jerk his instincts demanded. No, they would never be happy for him. Not him. "Go away Jazz. I have work and you need to rest." He said voice cold, whatever good mood he'd been feeling gone in an instant. He knew how the others felt about him. And he knew it was well deserved too.

Jazz stared, for a couple seconds (2.634) he looked hurt, but it shifted to impassivity. "You are wrong about them ya know."

"We can't all be popular like you Jazz. I made my choice a long time ago. It's fine." Prowl picked up his datapad going back to his work.

Jazz hesitated a moment and pulled back, watching Prowl intently. They were a long lived people, and they had been friends for a long long time. Some things just took longer before they could be dealt with. Jazz was willing to wait until Prowl's numbers were more encouraging and the mech was ready to talk more about these dreams he was having and these new emotional outbursts (outbursts for Prowl) and his relationship with the other 'bots. "We'll talk more about this later." The TiC said finally and left.

  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

  
There it was again. Something black and white seen out the corner of her eye. She turned her head but it was gone. Red, green, blue, tan. Ordinary cars. White! But no, just some stupid truck.

A horn blared and she swore softly. Stupid stupid stupid. Should have been paying attention to the stupid light. She pressed the gas, her beat up old car trundling along. During the last few weeks she could've sworn she'd seen that weird police car at least a dozen times. But always as she was driving, or once a glimpse at the end of the road while she was coming out of her home. Was Prowl stalking her?

Her mind drifted to him as she drove to work automatically. Not a police officer. Probably. Was he a special agent? A detective? His car did have the lights on it, that was probably illegal if he wasn't a cop. Was he from out of town? Was he a secret agent? Not a super subtle car, even if it wasn't flashy really. She wished she could remember it better. Just... a vague idea. Black and white, the lights, small, front was long, would that be called a nose? Only one door per side, backseat small like a sports car. What kind of police car was shaped sorta like a sports car too? Again the words 'secret agent' came to mind. Oh my gosh, could she get any sappier? She did not live in some cheap romance novel or cheesy soap opera! She was _not_ being stalked by a secret agent!

Blushing brightly she parked her car with unnecessary harshness. Argh. She took a couple deep breaths, she didn't want to be late but she didn't want to show up blushing either. Tiff would ask questions and tease her again. Tiff was great, but telling her about her encounter with Prowl had been a definite mistake. She was pretty sure everyone had a friend like Tiff. Tiff pretty much lived for drama and had invented a huge, convoluted story about 'Agent Prowl' that grew bigger by the day. It was definitely all Tiff's fault that she kept thinking that he was a secret agent.

Once she was sure that she was okay she opened the door and got out, careful to lock her car. Again she thought she saw a flash of... but no, she didn't look this time. She would _not_ give in to the silliness. Nope nope nope nope. She walked toward her office building not seeing the black and white vehicle parked down the street.

  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

  
Stalking people was wrong. Stalking people was _very_ wrong, and illegal, and Prowl always obeyed the law. _Always_. But his fascination with the beautiful little human sometimes made it very hard. First it was just to check she had recovered from her rough night, that she really had suffered no lasting harm from the hypothermia. An unnecessary objective but he'd done it nonetheless.

After that there was no excuse. Before, just setting up patrol routes so he covered the places he'd sighted her more frequently and hoping to catch sight of her, that was one thing, a silly but acceptable thing. But now that he knew where she lived the temptation to actively seek her was so much stronger. He wanted to know where she worked, what her favorite color was, what sort of job she had, did she sing? What kind of music did she like? Her name rolled around and around in his processor, beautiful as spoken by her own lips. It was foolish and unproductive but he replayed the memories of the brief time he had with her in spare moments.

He wanted to see her again. No. What he _wanted_ was to talk to her but how would that even work? Last time he had lucked out with the darkness and her tiredness. Somehow she'd failed to realize he was without a driver when she'd gotten in that night but how on earth could he possibly talk with her again without being completely obvious? He wasn't sure if he was ready to reveal his true nature to her, or talk to her again for that matter. Somehow he hadn't ruined everything last time but if he persisted in trying to talk to her sooner or later he'd stick his pede so far down his throat he'd need a medic to remove it (as Jazz liked to say). And the likelihood of building sufficient rapport with her before hand that his mistake wouldn't end relations permanently was very very low (1.523%). There was a _reason_ he didn't really have friends among the other Autobots. Master of tactics, interpersonal relations failure. Ratchet said it had to do with his overdeveloped logic center. It made his speech perfectly precise and logical, excellent for giving reports or commands, but cool and aloof as well. Most had dismissed him as 'unfeeling' or 'a very cold sparked mech' early in the war. In the ages since Prowl had gotten better at getting his cold analytical voice to emote properly but... well Cybertronians were a long lived people, slow to change, and it had been far too late for first impressions.

Besides, they had much deeper reasons to hate him, and they were right too, he was a rather cold sparked mech. War did that to you. Few could see that much death, and cause so much of it directly or indirectly as warrior or commander, without their sparks going at least a little cold. His logic had saved his life, and the lives of others millions of times over. His battle computer's endless calculations had turned the tide time and again, preserving the Autobot cause. But in war people died, all the logic and tactics in all the galaxy couldn't save everyone. All he could do was manipulate and organize things to give everyone as much a chance as he could, and sometimes, to save the many at the cost of the few. He had knowingly sent many many good mechanisms to their deaths. Someone had to make the hard choices, of who would live and who would die. Optimus couldn't, too clouded by his emotions and passions. Time and again it had fallen to Prowl, with his incredible tactical battle computer to choose. Besides, it was better he be the one the Autobots blamed for the deaths of comrades. If they'd blamed Optimus Prime, it would've been a blow to morale and would have harmed the Autobot cause forever.

No, far better they hate and resent Prowl for the deaths of their comrades, see him as a cold sparked monster, willing to sacrifice any life in pursuit of victory, than for them to, for even a moment, think any ill of their beloved Prime. Optimus Prime wasn't just another mech, he was a symbol, the hope of all good mechanisms of Cybertron. And hope was in far too short supply in this eternal war for Prowl to permit anything to threaten it.

It was the logical choice, he could calculate the best strategy in seconds, he could save the greatest number, ensure the highest survival rates, make every life cost the Decepticons the most. Logically he was the best choice, and he had known that. And logically he knew it was impossible to save everyone. But that didn't make it not hurt to see them die.

For a long time, near the beginning of the war, he had kept track of them all, names, bios, when and how they died, but as time passed and as his pre-war friends died the bios grew shorter until it was just an endless list of names. He'd been promoted early for his skills and tactical ability, and combined with his seeming cold demeanor he had made few friends after the war had started. And he had been secretly glad of it, it was easier to send mecha into battle, knowing the exact probability for each that they would not survive, if he didn't know them, didn't think of them as friends.

By the time the war had lasted a half million years, the list of names had been reduced to just another number and, as the war had grown more violent and bloody, even he lost track of the number. The guilt had nearly destroyed him. For a time he had been locked away, deep behind Autobot lines as he'd been lost inside his own mind, restrained to keep from harming himself while he worked through things. Survivor's guilt they called it but, though he was no doctor, he'd always been certain it was more than just that.

Then one day Optimus Prime came to visit him and Prowl had hear the voice of the Prime for the first time in his function, like a light piercing through the darkness he was drowning in, calling him back, telling him he was needed. Prowl had not been able to respond at the time, still too deep in his drowning despair, but the next day he'd undone the restraints, escaped his cell, and found the Prime, reporting for duty, all before anyone had realized there had been a shift in his mental state.

Compared to the chains within his own mind the rest had been newspark's play.

He had a purpose. The Prime had called and he must comply. His battle computer and overdeveloped logic circuits were needed. The war was marching on and he was needed to help keep the Autobots alive as best he could. There were exams, frantic, overworked medics checking him over, but they could not find anything clearly wrong with Prowl. He had come out the other side of his grief induced madness whole, stronger even. Reluctantly they had cleared him for duty. He'd then requested an upgrade to his brain module, one that had been recommended to him since his early years but he had always been resistant to before, not liking the idea of modifying his own frame, as if changing _what_ he was would change _who_ he was. After his ordeal it seemed such a foolish concern, and a selfish one at that. How many more lives could have been saved if not for his fear and stubborn pride?

The increased data storage space had greatly improved the efficiency and raw power of his battle computer. He'd felt the difference immediatly upon waking after the sugery, details of his environment absorbed and stored in moments, the ceaseless numbers of his battle computer that had characterized his entire function running smooth and clear even as his processor was struggling clear of the drugs that clouded it. That was when he'd met Jazz, wild unpredictable Jazz, lounging on a chair by the medical berth waiting for him to awaken. Prowl had heard of the special Ops agent, managing to pick up on hints and clues others ignored or couldn't see until he'd discovered the secret group. He'd been tempted to dig at the group that clearly operated outside the law and normal chain of command. But he had been a lower ranked commander and his firm loyalty to the chain of command demanded he not do covert investigations or demand answers, but trust his superiors. It seemed that, after the Prime himself had come to recruit him, he was now either high enough ranked to be allowed knowledge of the secret group, or considered potentially dangerous enough to require one of the deadly agents as a sitter. The rapid calculations that followed indicated it was probably both.

Jazz. From the cold glare he'd leveled at him from the very beginning it was clear he knew of Prowl, of his fearsome reputation as both an efficient warrior and a brutally sparkless commander, willing to sacrifice anything, or anyone, in the pursuit of the objective. Hate had radiated off of the slightly larger bot though he'd managed a smile, which had seemed odd to Prowl until he realized the special ops agent had also heard of Prowl's disability (his processor's tendency to simply crash when faced with data too difficult to integrate. Not that it usually caused much in the way of problems (he never would have been allowed an active part in the war if it had) but every once in a while, and especially if his systems were over-stressed, he would find himself onlining in the medbay with corrupted data files to sort through to find the cause.) as the visored mech proceeded to play one of the cruelest games of 'break Prowl' he'd suffered since he was a newspark.

Jazz, his best and oldest remaining friend. Their relationship had started as a very, deeply mutual, hate-hate relationship. Mr Spontaneous and Mr Has-a-Plan-for-Everything, Mr By-the-Book and Mr Rules-What-Rules?, The Saboteur and the Tactician. It didn't take very long to figure out exactly why the Prime had picked Jazz to be the liaison between Prowl and Autobot high command, breaking the tactician into his new role as a high commander instead of the local commander he had been previously. Literally break in some ways, even physically attacking him at times, pushing Prowl, goading him, trying to knock him off balance, toughening him up, ensuring that Prowl wouldn't break when he _was_ needed. But by putting the two at each other's throats at the very first, forcing them to work together as their conflicting natures drove each other nearly to distraction, Optimus was able to sharpen two of his greatest weapons while simultaneously rounding them both out more as mechs. Prowl had seen it from early on, his enhanced battle computer perceiving the logistics of the situation swiftly, and Jazz, crooked and canny of mind, no doubt understood from the first too, hidden motives being his native waters (probably a factor in how hostile the special ops agent had been initially).

In time open hostility became grudging respect, both admitting that the other was indeed good at what they did (in spite of their methods). Prowl even allowed himself to admire the mech, despite his lack of respect for the rules. Jazz was popular for good reason. He was friendly and charismatic, a real charmer. He made friends everywhere, with everyone, raising morale, willing to do anything and everything to help his fellow Autobots. Everyone who knew him, who met him, who had heard of him, knew he would have their back, be it fighting or cutting loose. Everyone loved Jazz. And as much as they loved Jazz, they hated Prowl. Cold, calculating, the source of the best, most efficient plans and tactics. Jazz would never leave a mech behind. Prowl would sacrifice anyone for the cause. Jazz could party like no other. Prowl only did work, stern and serious at all times. One as bright and warm as the dawn, the other cold and dark as winter's night. As black and white as their paint jobs.

But Prowl knew the darkness hidden beneath the bright exterior, the secret missions, the buried pain and rage. A connection grew between them, especially as they worked together, though it lacked much in emotional depth until the fall of Praxus. When Praxus fell Jazz saw him, truly _saw_ him, the small pure light of his spark hidden beneath the cool demeanor and the dark facade of the deathbringer he wore. Jazz had seen through him in that dark time, when no one else had, and reminded Prowl that there was indeed a beating spark beneath his plating after all. Funny it was, the bright one with a hidden darkness, the dark one with a hidden brightness, like that yin-yang symbol of the humans. Perhaps that was why they made such fast friends, they fit, symmetrical in in their dissimilarity.

But times changed, the war went on, and now, here on earth, things were so much brighter. It was all this life literally in the air. Each vent traced with spores and bacteria and those strange microscopic organic constructs humans called viruses. The air seemed to be charged with hope too, so unlike the endless despair of ruined Cybertron, the human phrase 'a breath of fresh air' felt all too accurate. And the dreams and his darling little human. Life, hope, warmth. Earth was truly incredible. But why exactly was he drawn to her? what did he want? He had his best friend Jazz, his brother Bluestreak, Bumblebee who was friends with everyone, and Optimus Prime as his beloved leader. He was not an overly social mech, didn't that fill all his relationship needs? He'd survived most of the war well enough with even fewer friends than that. So why was his spark yearning for more _now_?

Or had his spark always yearned for more? And he'd just kept himself too busy to let himself hear it? That was a thought that bore serious consideration. Her name replayed itself in his processor. His spark hummed inside him. Very emotional reaction. And these emotions were causing problems with his fellow Autobots. Or the display of them. Somehow he had to make sure he didn't cause problems for the others, to distract them in battle. Pit, he shouldn't be letting his emotions trigger during battle. Battle was _no_ _place_ for emotions. Well, not _his_ emotions. Other bots used their emotions when they fought. Theoretically he could..?

No.

No, fighting was logic and procedure. He'd tried emotions before, they didn't work. Besides, someone had to keep calm at all times, someone had to keep track of everything, ensure sound tactics. He had a _purpose_ , a function, as part of the Autobot army. They _depended_ on him being who and what he was. He couldn't go changing now. He needed to find a way to ensure that his personal life didn't interfere with his function. Secretly, in some part deep inside, he desperately hoped that Jazz was right, that he could find way to keep these things, pleasant and happy, without becoming a liability.

He wanted to see her again, but until he found a way to keep a handle on these new... emotional reactions, it was out of the question. Each contact exacerbated his condition and he could not let it become a danger to his fellow Autobots.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

  
"All that smiling, its like he's _happy_ or something"

"Yeah and Prowl is _NEVER_ happy."

"And the humming, don't forget the humming."

"Well sometimes he is, I think"

"At all hours of the-"

"But not like that."

"No never like that."

"Me Grimlock not like-"

"You've gotta do _something_ Prime."

"It's creepy as all pit."

Three dozen bright blue optics all looked up at the Prime expectantly as their voices finally fell silent. "Well... what do you want me to do about it?" Optimus asked uncomfortably. "If Prowl is happy... its a good thing... right?" He rubbed his helm. Prowl. Happy. Those words didn't go together except in sentences like 'we are all happy that Prowl is leaving now'. The mech suffered depression didn't he? Or was that Gears? And when Gears had been happy...

DECEPTICON PLOT! Optimus Prime reared up, joints stiffening plating flaring. "You are right fellow Autobots. Something is seriously wrong with Prowl!" One hand went to his hip, the other pointing dramatically at a slightly upward angle. "WE MUST FIND OUT WHAT IS WRONG WITH PROWL! TO PROWL'S OFFICE!" He roared and charged from the room, all the assembled Autobots flowing after him like an unstoppable tide.

As a single unit they thundered down the corridors of the Ark. The door to Prowl's office was thrown open and his SiC looked up from his desk, blue optics wide with surprise. "Prime, what is..?" His gaze drifted to the swarm of Autobots piling in after the Prime and those bright optics began to pale, doorwings going rigid, the first signs that his delicate processor was about to crash.

"Prowl! We have" There was a ringing crash as Prowl's helm slammed into the desk, the SiC's frame going limp, a thin trickle of smoke coming out from under his helm. Well, that solved a couple problems. Soon they had scooped up the unconscious mech, eager hands carrying him to the medbay in short order. "Ratchet! Wheeljack! Perceptor! Something is wrong with Prowl! I want you to run every test on him you can until you find out what it is!" The Prime bellowed.

"Oh _really_? It just looks like you overloaded his logic center again." Ratchet groused, scowling over at the swarm of assembled Autobots. "Why are you _ALL_ Here? Did you all jump him or something?"

"They did!" Jazz yelled stomping in covered in mud, visor glowing with rage. Hadn't Jazz been out on patrol? "They all _attacked_ him." Immediately complaints rose up and the bickering began.

"We did not attack him." Optimus Prime said haughtily and silence fell. "It has come to my attention that Prowl has been behaving oddly. We must make sure it is nothing serious, that it is not some Decepticon plot."

"Decepticon..." Jazz's mouth hung open. "What, can't the mech be happy for once?"

The Prime let out a grumble. "Is he happy Jazz? Or is something going wrong inside him?" Gears turned into a cheerful slave, helping the Decepticons, all from having one little chip stolen. On his watch. These were his Autobots. He had to keep them safe.

"He's just happy!"

"Oh come on Jazz, Prowl is never happy." Cliffjumper said, to much murmured agreement among the gathered mechs.

"Or if he is, he never smiles." Bumblebee put in.

"Jazz. I know he's your friend and you" Optimus paused and looked over at Prowl's unconscious frame, spread out on the medical berth, Ratchet bent over him, working on opening his helm. The mech had done so much, sacrificed so much in this war. He had a reputation for being a very cold sparked mech, but Optimus had worked with him long enough to know better. Was it... was it possible?

"Optimus, you are crowding me." Ratchet growled.

Optimus Prime blinked, he hadn't realized he had come closer, hovering over his unconscious friend. Friend. "We would all like to see Prowl happy Jazz." He said pulling away from the medical berth. "But we have to check to make sure that is what this really is."


	4. Mixed Signals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another scene of Jazz sitting on Prowl's desk. I think I have a problem.  
> Jazz seems to be that annoying little brother that grew up to be bigger than you O.o
> 
> Also apparently calling this chapter mixed signals messed with my brain because now, dear reader, you get to misunderstand _everything_.

Greg was cute. Okay, not just cute, adorable, when he smiled that was. His smiles lit up the room as he laughed casually and honestly. When he smirked he was downright hot, like bone melting, knowing quirks of the lips, that glint of trouble in his deep green eyes. Did she have a crush on Greg? Yes, she had a crush on Greg. So did everyone else. Or rather, so _had_ everyone else. Over time it seemed most people got used to working with someone who was somehow both overly attractive _and_  genuinely nice, and had moved on to other dramas. Tiff was far too busy plotting out convoluted ways to get Rolf-from-the-diner's attention to crush on Greg (when she wasn't coming up with "Secret Agent Prowl" stories that was).

But Tiff knew she still had a crush on Greg, and encouraged her to make a move, to act on those feelings. But Greg was... Greg. Handsome, kind, slightly devilish, in a word, amazing. She had talked to him, they had chatted quite a bit actually, only reinforcing her crush. But Greg was a friendly guy, he chatted with everyone, and he was _so_ out of her league. Tiff claimed that he talked to her more than anyone else but Tiff was her best friend, it was her job to say nice things. Plus Tiff was, quite frankly, delusional in her obsession with romantic drama (as the "Secret Agent Prowl" stories quite proved).

"And he can't tell you who he _really_ is because then the Russian mobsters would use you against him."

"Seriously Tiff?"

"But he is worried that they already know so he _has_ to keep checking on you to make sure you are okay. He knows every time he does it that he puts you in danger but his feelings are _so_ strong he just cannot keep himself away." Tiff said, hand over her heart, voice and eyes soulful, and ending with a dramatic sigh.

"Oh gosh Tiff, you are so full of it." She said with an exasperated laugh.

"It could be true." Tiff shot back with a smirk. "Oh come on, admit it, you love my stories."

Okay maybe. They were hilarious and they did appeal to a small fanciful part of her, but no, she would never admit it. "Tiff, for the last time, I am not being stalked by a secret agent. He was just a nice police officer who took pity on the young idiot walking home in the rain. That's all there is to it." She said with an exasperated chuckle.

"Don't you have any romance in your soul?" Tiff complained.

"Well someone has to be the voice of reason in" She trailed off. Tiff wasn't looking at her, looking past her instead, a slight smirk on her lips.

"Speaking of romance... here comes lover boy now. Tell me how it go-es." Her friend added in a whisper and made herself scarce.

Loverboy? That could only mean Greg. She spun almost losing her balance and sure enough, there he was, looking slightly embarrassed.

"Hey." He said with a nervous smile. Greg was never nervous. Except when... Oh no, she was about to be fired wasn't she? Oh no. She needed this job, she really did, and it was so cruel of them to always make Greg be the one to break the news. "So I've been meaning to tell you that, um..." He twiddled his fingers anxiously. She was going to lose her apartment and be stuck living in her car. No that was silly, she could get another job, somehow.

Tears prickled at her eyes and Greg blanched, swallowing nervously. She forced a smile on her lips. "It's okay Greg, I get it."

"Wha-you, you do?" He said baffled, faintly relieved but even more confused. "Then why are you crying?"

"I just got fired, why do you think?" She half snapped half wailed. Crying, making a scene, how humiliating.

"What?" he seemed almost angry then blinked brow furrowing. "Wait, you thought" he swore, running a hand through sandy brown hair. "Eeesh no. I'm just trying to ask you on a date for Pete's sake."

Oh. "Oh." She said dumbly. Very dumbly. Everything about her seemed dumb in that moment. She gave a soft half choke of a sob as her mind and emotions readjusted.

"So...?" He gave her a worried look and her brain tried to kick into gear.

'But you don't date co-workers' she wanted to say, but that was rather silly at this point. "I have tomorrow off." She half croaked.

A smile, charming and earnest. "I know. Would you join me for lunch around noon? There is a nice little cafe I like nearby." And just like that things were arranged. She had a date with Greg. Life was good.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

Prowl came online slowly, systems booting out of order and painfully slow. Everything hurt. He felt like... like he'd been taken apart and put back together again. "Ugh." His optics started to come online, then crashed, then slowly came back again, revealing the medbay ceiling. Other sensors were still coming online but yes, definitely the medbay (93.684% proba-probability). His battle computer stuttered and shut down before rebooting. "Ratchet... what happened?" He asked. Even though he couldn't see the medic he could still sense him in the room.

"Oh, don't insult me. I'm sure you already know what happened." The medic grumbled. "Isn't that what your battle computer does?"

Prowl checked his files, booting protocols fully functional, what had happened, damage reports from every part of his frame, the rawness of new or reconnected parts. "Well... it seems I was disassembled, full checkup and possible overhaul..." (84. 85.294% probabi-bility) He rubbed his helm running quick codes trying to clean up the error codes and fragments in his memory files. Bad crash. What had happened? It had been really fast for him not to have had time to initiate at least some of his preparatory protocols to mitigate the crash. He was doing paperwork and... Optimus... Optimus Prime? Standing on a pile of Autobots? No that wasn't right. Lots of Autobots... a war party?

"Not really a complete overhaul but we did replace rather a lot of your logic circuits." Perceptor said, startling Prowl from his reconstructing of the corrupted files.

Prowl looked over at the scientist surprised to see him in the medbay (10.486% probability). Perceptor usually wasn't involved in medical checkups unless chips or circuit cards were involved and Prowl wasn't aware any of his chips had been damaged in any way. And why had he stuck around to be present when Prowl reawoke? Uneasiness filled his spark as different scenarios that would explain this situation ran through, one after the other. He didn't like any of them. "Okay. Why? Obviously this is more than just a post-crash checkup. Did I do something that worried Optimus? What were you looking for?"

He sat up slowly and flexed his doorwings, the sensor panels flaring away from his frame. The joints hurt, but as he rolled them through upper and lower positions, moving slow and smooth the pain began to ease into the dull just-reassembled ache. His battle computer was running numbers, countless comparisons. Physically it seemed all was settling out within 0.500% of expected considering what had been done.

Perceptor and Ratchet were exchanging glances still, neither seemed quite sure what to say. Prowl frowned. This was highly abnormal (0.084%). Numbers flitted through his processor and he fixed the two with one of his icy glares as he felt his spark go cold. "This is about my recent changes in behavior." He said flatly (89.995%). Perceptor shrank under his gaze but Ratchet just glared back.

"You came to me just an earth week ago to check that your logic circuits were functioning correctly." The medic growled. "You've fried quite a number of them since, above and beyond what was damaged by your crash earlier and your emotional center wasn't doing much better. Are you going to tell me what is going on that is putting such stress on your systems _now_?" He loomed threateningly at Prowl.

Prowl met the medic's glare evenly then pointedly shifted his gaze to Perceptor and back. "Did you perhaps mean to say 'us' rather than 'me'?" He asked acidly. Emotions, shifting again. They had been so cold, fear and anticipatory grief at the thought that he was going to have to give up on his... well, imagined, relationship (86.453%), but now they were turning sharp and hot. His personal health was not Perceptor's business, beyond whatever the scientist needed to know for his own work.

Ratchet blinked in surprise. "Are you... Angry?" He asked with perplexed caution, as if slowly shifting his weight onto uncertain ground.

Prowl shuttered his optics. Yes. Yes he was. Defensive. A perceived threat to his little piece of happiness. He focused inward shoving at his code, tweaking, rewriting. This was not a threat. This was his fellow Autobots being rightly worried. He was acting unlike himself (73.845% similarity to previous behavior patterns), if it had been anyone else acting so different without probable cause he would have ordered a complete checkup himself if none of the other officers had beaten him to it. Logic hummed and simmered, centering him.

"Prowl? Are you... feeling alright?" Perceptor's voice was closer than he expected and Prowl's optics snapped open again, doorwings flaring as they reassessed his surroundings. The scientist was close, one dark grey hand hovering as if he would put a hand on the SiC's shoulder. Ratchet was close behind him, a worried frown showing only a fraction of the unease Prowl sensed the medic was feeling.

Feeling alright? "No." Prowl said simply, voice fully calm, field neutral. He felt tired, drained. All these emotions, straining his systems, troubling the other Autobots, not knowing what to do about her. Emotions were troublesome, no wonder he suppressed them most of the time, all this trouble only served as a reminder as to why even the 'good' ones had to be kept on a tight leash. "I am struggling with some... emotional unrest." He didn't want to get into it, but the concern and worry of their fields so close woke a weak longing in him, wanting that comfort.

Brutally he quashed the feeling and shook his helm to clear it. He was SiC, he couldn't show weakness, even here, and as the steadiest of the Autobots leaders he couldn't afford to act unprofessionally. The others relied on that steadiness to grant stability to their chaotic war-torn lives. "So I take it that, other than the fried logic circuits and strained emotional center, you could not find anything wrong?" He asked, meeting their gazes calmly.

"No." Ratchet held up a datapad as if to reference it, though he didn't actually look at it. "No viruses, no malware, no bugs, no foreign devices, we found nothing unexpected anywhere inside your frame." Prowl winced slightly, every strut, joint, and junction twinging at the reminder of the invasive search. "Just the damage to your brain module and the usual residuals from a severe crash."

Well it was good to know there wasn't anything else he needed to worry about on top of his 'human problem'. Severe crash? An image popped up from his defragging pre-crash memory files. Optimus surrounded by Autobots filling his office. "Did... Did Optimus drag most of our soldiers into my office?" The idea, even now, threatened to destabilize his processor. Getting coherent reports from some of them was a battle all of its own and most of them avoided him as if he were a plauge carrier. How on earth had the Prime coerced them all into coming at once?

"Yes... he did." Ratchet said scowling. "I take it you are starting to remember?"

"Yes. I think my memory files and coding are all straightened out now. Do you know why our Prime did it?"

"You don't?"

"None of the explanations I've come up with are particularly viable."

"Well." Perceptor said uneasily. "They sort of mobbed you. As in, angry mob armed with crowbars and blow torches, except not so much the angry part as I understand it."

"They were worried about your odd behavior and Optimus went overboard thinking you had somehow been tampered with by the Decepticons." Ratchet grumbled. "As if they'd had a chance, and even if they had _I_ would have noticed something when I fixed up your sensor panel after that last battle."

Worried? Well... he would be worried if one of the other officers started to behave in a way that indicated a serious lapse in judgement. The Autobots needed to be able to trust their leaders to be sane after all. It was a logistics thing, not an emotional thing. They were worried about the competence of their SiC not Prowl himself (82.483%) or they feared a Decepticon plot (48.582%). At least everything had come back negative. Now all he had to do was get a handle on his responses and everything could go back to normal. "Then I am clear for duty?"

"What? Don't you want to... talk about..." Ratchet trailed off as Prowl's icy blue optics bore into him, unable to directly mention the stoic SiC's emotions under that stare.

"Is there any _medical reason_ I cannot get back to work?"

"No. No you can go now." The medic said clearing his vocalizer. "But if you ever want to..."

"If you need someone to talk to." Perceptor put in as the two backed away to make room for Prowl getting off the medical berth.

"If I need someone to talk to then I will find someone to talk to." Prowl said indifferently. "I thank you for your... offers." He added delicately, a sort of after thought. The idea of talking about his feelings to anyone other than Jazz or Bluestreak put him off balance, and here two of the crew were offering it at him freely, concern dominating their fields. Perhaps he was just overly sensitive to the emotions of others now that his own were acting up so much. "Good day." He said as he headed out, part of his processor already on the work ahead and the backlog from being in medical for so long. But another part was trickling down familiar paths, whispering a now familiar name over and over, tugging at stored images and sound bytes. A faint hum started in his vocalizer only to be strangled out. Control. He must remain in control.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

The cafe was nice, trendy, with a few abstract art pieces, and indeed, near where they worked. She and Greg took a table near the front where they could look out the floor-to-ceiling windows out at the greenery in the small courtyard across the street. The food was good, the conversation was fun, and Greg was as handsome as ever. All in all it was a wonderful first date. She was still really embarrassed that she had misinterpreted his approach before. Truly, in spite of all Tiff said, she had never really considered that Greg would like _her_ , boring average her. But Greg laughed it off and cheered her up. Apparently he had been crushing on her for quite a while too.

"Well yeah, Sarah and Britt are pretty and all but Sarah’s kinda stuck up and all Britt wants to talk about is fashion and movie stars." Greg made a face. "And there is really only so long I can talk about either before my brain starts to dribble out my ears." Then he looked at her with that small, shy half smile. "But you, there is just more to you. I feel like I can talk to you about anything."

"Well I guess I do have rather varied interests." She said with a chuckle, feeling a pleasant warmth inside. Sometimes she wished she had gone to college, sought out more learning, but things hadn't quite worked out that way. "In a way I guess that's part of why I like you too. You just... you're smart and you know a lot about a lot of things. I feel like I can learn a lot from you but you never make me feel dumb."

Greg chuckled, rubbing a hand on the back of his head looking sheepish. "Oh I'm not all that clever, and you've already brought up quite a few things I'd never even thought of." Dang he was just so darn cute. So so cute.

The date was going well, really well. Until he pointed something out to her out the window. Maybe it was a bird she was supposed to see or something but she couldn't remember because the second she looked out the window her every thought was scattered to the winds because there it was. Black on the lower half, white on top, a trim police vehicle that looked a bit like a racecar. Her heart clenched. He was here. Prowl was... here?

Prowl, in this cafe, his car was parked right there in front. She was on her feet, looking around. Had he really been following her? She _had_ seen his car all those times hadn't she, it hadn't just been her imagination. Her eyes raked across the patrons, table by table. There, a man, sitting alone, clean cut, reasonably attractive, some serious facial scars. She smirked. Prowl.

She could hear someone calling her name but that hardly seemed important at the moment. "Well hel-lo Prowl." She said smirking as she approached. The man looked up at her surprised. Busted.

"Excuse me?"

She felt the faintest flicker of unease. "Prowl right? You saved me the other night in the..." She trailed off as he frowned in confusion.

"No... I'm pretty sure that you have me confused with someone else ma'am." The man said uncomfortably.

"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry, I just..." She turned away embarrassed. Greg was right there, asking what she was doing and generally upset. Her eyes flicked automatically but where Prowl's car had been just a tiny while before the parking spot was now empty. She had made a fool of herself again because of her stupid assumptions, and worse she had ruined her date with Greg. Finally things were going so well and she had to ruin it all just because she indulged in silly fantasies.

Time to put these things aside. Forget about Prowl, once and all. Either he would show up again in her life, but far more likely not. She had her own life to live and worry about. She smiled at an upset Greg. "Sorry Greg, I just thought he was someone I knew. It's not important." It might take some sweet talking but she had a date to salvage. Greg was worth it and her honest smile had already gone quite a way to repairing the damage.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

The door to Prowl's office opened with a soft woosh and Prowl could feel Jazz's smirk immediately. Prowl's expression hardened, giving the datapad in his hand a deadly glare. Twice in as many weeks? Oh what had he done to deserve this honor?

"Prrroowwll." Jazz purred, sauntering in.

"Go away Jazz. I am busy." Prowl said, voice clipped, doorwings lowered slightly from their normal position with irritation that was just beginning. Thanks to the unscheduled overhaul Prime had ordered Prowl was behind on his paperwork, normally tidy desk stacked with datapads. Couldn't Jazz bother him when he wasn't working?

"Nah, you're not busy. You jess think yah are." He said coming over and taking a seat on the corner of Prowl's desk, turning to kick one pede up onto it, watching with a satisfied grin as Prowl's doorwings began to hike up in annoyance.

"Get off of my desk Jazz." 4,403,320 his processor reported. The number only worsened his mood, and for some reason the scene of the human female refueling with an unknown male popped up. That shouldn't have bothered him either. Jazz was messing around and the human female was with another of her kind, neither was an actual problem, or even unexpected. It shouldn't bother him a bit.

"What? Ah'm on your desk? Are you sure?" Jazz asked, a voice of perfectly executed shocked innocence while his grin was anything but. He bent his knee, pulling the offending pede closer and slinging his arms around his leg.

"I'm not in the mood Jazz."

"So Ah'm not on your desk. Thought so." He said seriously and nodded to himself.

"Jazz!" Prowl gritted his denta. Seriously? In the past he would have argued the point but that would do no good. Jazz was just being Jazz, obnoxious contrary Jazz. "What.. do you want?" He growled out.

"Oh temper temper. Don't see you riled up like this offen. What’s goin on Prowler? What’s on your maahnd?" The saboteur purred.

Prowl counted his vents, forcing himself back into calm. Jazz knew how to get under his plating like no other. His emotional state was already suffering enough flux already, this week had contained far more excitement, between upset Autobots and humans, than he liked, and now Jazz was-

It was almost too late to react when Prowl realized Jazz had moved. Reflexively he ducked the scything leg, feeling it scrape along the edge of his chevron for the briefest moment. Numbers angles vectors. His right arm came up catching Jazz's wrist as it followed after his first attack, halting the mech for a brief moment. Dimly he heard datapads hitting the floor as Jazz laughed and gave a surprisingly solid yank on Prowl's arm from flat on his back on Prowl's desk, other hand gripping the opposite edge as an anchor.

"I had those ORGANIZED!" Prowl snarled and threw himself forward with the pull, taking Jazz briefly by surprise, and giving him a hard elbow in the abdominal plating. There was a loud oof and the two were wrestling, Jazz laughing like the maniac he was. Prowl won, in that he managed to eventually pin Jazz to the ground, quite a feat considering they were all but matched for strength and Jazz was by far the more limber and experienced. Jazz won in that he most definitely was having fun with the whole situation.

81.305% Probability Jazz was not trying to win

Wait that meant-

Next thing he knew he was face down on the floor, Jazz on his back, one arm twisted up painfully behind him. Prowl let out a small growl, quickly testing the limits of his motion, sensor panels flared then sighed (escape 2.539%). "Fine, you win. Now what?"

"Hm... Ah don know..."

"Then help me put my datapads back in order." Prowl growled.

"Oh yer no fun at all Prowler." Jazz cried.

"Isn't that my job?" Prowl asked with a bit of a smirk only the floor was witness to.

"Well... yah Ah guess... but..."

"But nothing. Enough of this silliness, get off me." Prowl tried to twist jerk his arm free of Jazz's grip but the saboteur's grip tightened the moment he sensed the motion and he tugged Prowl's wrist higher making him wince.

"Aww, trying to get away?" He leaned closer and gripped the edge of one of Prowl's doorwings, near the base.

"Hey." Prowl said warningly, nervousness spiking inside him in spite of himself. There were rules to their (infrequent) wrestling, unofficial though they were. No trips to the medbay, winner gets a favor, and no targeting his sensor panels (which technically went under the medbay rule, the sensors were delicate and too annoying to Ratchet to fix to risk).

"Hush and hold still." Prowl vented slowly, evenly, waiting. "Now then, Ah want you to tell me... who the lucky mech is."

Prowl tried to process this, the words making sense individually, but not together. "Sorry... what?"

Jazz smirked. "Oh come on Prowl, you are the one that drove me to this, now Ah've beaten you fair and square so tell. Who is it? Who has caught your fancy?"

Numbers ran up and down and side to side, thousands upon thousands, hexidecimal, decidecimal, binary. He knew the meaning of all those words but he could not get them to make sense together. "What?"

"Come on Prowler, you think Ah wouldn't notice my best friends in looooooooooooooooooove?"

"Of all the pit blasted scraplet infested misclocking glitched ideas Jazz." Prowl growled, honestly surprised he wasn't crashing again. He jerked his sensor panel downward out of Jazz's hand. "What is wrong with you?" Why? Why now of all times did his friend have to go insane?

"Wrong with me? Wrong with me?" Jazz cried in mock affront before returning to his previous gleeful purr. "Stahp squirming Prowler and fess up. Is it Bumblebee?"

"Get off Jazz." Prowl jerked to the side, knocking Jazz off balance.

"Hey, you have to tell, them's the rules Prowl." Jazz complained as Prowl got loose. He suddenly grinned. "It looks like Ah've finally corrupted you after all."

"Shut up you idiot." Prowl growled, getting to his pedes and grabbing Jazz.

"Aw Prowl! Don be like this, cummon, Ah won fair and squaare." Jazz complained, half laughing, as Prowl dragged him to the door and threw him out. "Cummon Prowl, you've gotta tell me sooner or later." He called, playful voice muffled by the closed door.

Honestly, trying to use the rules of their wrestling matches to make Prowl confess to having feelings for one of the others? Honestly, him? in love? Did Jazz forget who he was? He didn't do interpersonal relations, he didn't fall in love, couldn't, because that would mean-

The whisper of an all too human name brushed through his mind.

FATAL ERROR

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dang it Prowl, you drama queen, don't you know any other way to end a chapter?


	5. Critical Mass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Critical Mass: the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I am writing waaaaaay too much angst for this supposedly happy fic O.O  
> Sorry Prowl
> 
> And the Reader gets closer to the truth, all on her own too! Aren't you a smart cookie.  
> Bonus points if you can tell what episode was referenced about Bumblebee visiting the arcade
> 
> Also... More Autobots! Poptimus Prime Strikes! (Or something, just shoot me now)

"Prowl Prowl Prowl Prowl Prowl." Jazz shook his head tsking as best an inorganic being could. Prowl's optics onlined, revealing Jazz's excited grin and the worried gleam to his bright blue visor. "You're supposed to crash while Ah'm still in the room, not lock me out first." He said, leaning back as he balanced his chair on its back two legs, one of his favorite ways to show off his practically impossible dexterity.

"So, what, it took you ten whole seconds to get the door open?" Prowl allowed himself a small chuckle. He felt tired and content despite his processor ache. This crash (92.583% probability it had been a crash) had not been nearly so bad as the last. His tactical computer had noted some danger markers and had time to execute most (83% approx.) of the protective measures he had developed over a long function of dealing with his disability. Already his pre-crash memories were clarifying.

"Well... you did change the code again." Jazz said almost whining. His smile was gone now, true expression showing through as his visor glowed softly, watching Prowl with silent intensity as the other sat up to free his doorwings.

"I'm okay Jazz. You don't have to worry."

"What? Me? Worried?" Jazz laughed at the idea then hesitated, stood, and flipped his chair around so he could sit on it backward, forearms resting on the back. "Yes, very worried. This is... what? Fifth time in the last month? You haven't been crashing so much since... well ever."

"I have not crashed five times in the last month."

"Ratchet read the readout, you've had two full crashes and three near misses."

Okay, that _was_ concerning. Prowl checked his data files. Not that near misses were too troubling, that just meant that significant preventative measures had been activated. It was just... and last time Ratchet had mentioned about his logic circuits wearing out faster than usual, and the emotional center of his brain module showing signs of stress. There was the medic now, catching his optics and giving him a meaningful, and slightly threatening, look. Prowl looked down, hands bunched into fists. What was happening to him?

"Prowl?" Jazz clicked his fingers a couple times to get the other mech's attention. "Prowl, buddy, you gotta tell me what's going on in that processor of yours." He said seriously, the worry radiating off him only increased by Prowl's distraction.

"Just... I'm fine Jazz... It's just... a temporary problem. I'll be okay." He wouldn't. He wasn't and he wouldn't be. The lies actually hurt to speak, his circuitry hissing against the massive untruth. He didn't do social pleasantries and thus had no built up tolerance for the white lies expected in social situations to diffuse the worry of others.

"Prowl?" Jazz sounded almost distressed now, as if he knew the conflict inside Prowl. His field stretched out, trying to make contact but Prowl contracted his field, tucking it under his armor out of range. And then there were dark hands, closing over his white ones. Memories triggered, other times Jazz had been there when his emotions were raw and taking him apart, and the times he had been there for Jazz when his work had torn his spark wild and wounded. Back to back, two and three, they had each other, held each other up, when there was no one else who dared, or even could.

In the wisdom of the Primes of the past, Optimus Prime had placed the two together, even before they reached the heights of military ranks. Two of the most dangerous mechs in his army, for completely different reasons, providing an anchor one to the other, strengths complementing the other's weaknesses. **"As different as day and night."** Jazz mumbled aloud in their native language. Clearly his own mind had been traveling down the same paths as Prowl's. He could feel much of the tension unwinding inside him. This wasn't a solution, but the familiar presence and thought patterns helped to stabilize him.

 **"Light and dark, hope and despair."** Prowl mumbled.

 **"You aren't despair Prowl, you are determination."** Jazz soothed softly.

**"You are determination too."**

**"Whell Ah don't have a monopoly on hope either."** Jazz replied with a grin that Prowl could hear rather than see. Prowl flicked his sensor panels slightly, scanning the room and finding that it was both one of the private ones and empty, door closed. Ratchet had opted to leave the two in peace. Good.

 **"I'm not a hopeful mech Jazz."** Prowl said softly, spark aching. Flip of the coin, hope and despair. That was the _proper_ formula.

 **"You aren't despair, except perhaps to our enemies."** Jazz chuckled lightly as Prowl's hands finally unclenched and carefully he maneuvered his hands so their palms rested against each other.

 **"Hnn... You are the hope of the Autobots and I am the despair of the Decepticons?"** Prowl offered, tone a bit lighter as their fingers wove together in that familiar way. He stared down at their hands, trying to focus, trying to think clearly.

 **"Somethin' like that. Despair doesn't suit you Prowler."** Jazz was his keeper, assigned from the beginning to ensure that the valuable tool Prowl was in the war was not lost again to the depression that had nearly destroyed him before the Prime found him in that barren cell. Sometimes... sometimes it was hard to believe that Jazz really was his friend, not just doing all these things in logical pursuit of his primary objective, to keep Prowl, or rather his tactical computer, functional. That is what Prowl would have done. He would do _anything_ required to reach the end goal. It just made so much sense, was the obvious explanation for such behavior toward a mech so inherently unlikeable as Prowl.

But Jazz wasn't like that. Jazz was Jazz. He followed his spark and his ruthless determination. But his emotions were completely real, among the Autobots anyway, or around him anyway. He only hid his true emotions while undercover. Except weakness, those times he came back from mission or battle his spark dark and troubled, and he came to Prowl who he knew he could be weak around, who would not judge him or tell the tales or lose morale from seeing their beacon of hope go dark. No, Jazz's emotions were real, even the ones he usually hid were allowed free with Prowl. Jazz cared about him, honestly _cared_ about Prowl the mech, not just the battle computer and tactics that were his function. "I... I don't understand." Prowl said softly, still unable to look up to see Jazz's expression. "Why you care."

"This again." Jazz sighed softly, a gentle sound of mingled regret and understanding. "Primus you are hurting to be going through this again. Ah know what your logic says, you've told me over an' over. Yer mah friend Prowler, you've had mah back and Ah've had yers. What do you always say? Where one cant stand two can?"

"I only said that twice Jazz, and that was a long time ago."

Jazz smirked "Only a'cuz Ah stole it from you so fast. 'Sides, Ah make it sound _gooooood_." A flicker of a smile twitched Prowl's face.

"You're a smug arrogant glitch you know that."

Jazz laughed. "And you are an uptight calculating kill-joy."

Prowl vented slowly, onlining his optics again. He felt better, settled, less afraid, less upset. Over four million years of mutual aid was a firm foundation to build on, their sparks and frames drawing comfort from each other with ease. Mind clear it was easier to get back to the problem at hand. His shoulders slumped slightly at memory, sensor panels drooping. "I'm not in love Jazz."

"Sure ya'ar."

"No Jazz." He made an unhappy sound in his vocalizer. "It's just... it's just an infatuation."

Jazz startled, visor flashing with surprise as Prowl lifted his optics to meet his. "Explain." Intense curiosity blared through his field, enough to make Prowl wince. Jazz pulled his field back a bit, toning it down apologetically but keeping contact.

"Love indicates reciprocation or at least some sort of... foundation for a relationship." Prowl tried to explain, letting his emotions and the honesty into his carefully controlled field. _Besides, she has another of her kind courting her already. One who makes her laugh and smile and... NO, don't think of that._ Already he could feel a faint flicker of anger, the same that had lashed out at Ratchet and Perceptor before, and a building dread and grief. No, he had to focus. Be logical, be reasonable. That was what would get him through this, what would enable him to fulfill his function and keep everyone safe.

Jazz was quiet, waiting for further explanation, but seeing as Prowl was only digging deeper into an emotional mire he spoke. "Prowl. Ah am here to help. Tell me what's on your mahnd."

"I just... it's a silly thing." Prowl said softly. "My emotions, it's causing problems among the crew, damaging my efficiency. I have a function Jazz, and once again my emotions are getting in the way."

"Prowl... it's okay to be in love."

"It's not love Jazz." Prowl snapped looking away. "It... it's just a selfish indulgence, a fantasy." His voice going quiet, almost a whisper near the end. He vented slowly as Jazz squeezed his hands softly. Calm, collected, rational.

"You know... that is sometimes how these things start." Jazz said in a wry half joking tone. "Besides, you aren't exactly qualified to know the difference Prowler."

"But I _am_ the only one qualified to be the head of tactics here."

"Doesn't mean you can't be in love _too_. There is more to life than your beloved function." Jazz growled annoyed.

"Jazz." Prowl sighed. The other didn't understand, perhaps couldn't, too heavily integrated into his emotions. "My function _is_ my life. Not everyone can balance all the things you can." He paused a moment, reviewing what he was about to say, comparing it to the data and conclusions he had already reached. His spark squeezed painfully but he knew what he had to do. "I have tried to allow myself this, as foolish as I knew it was from the outset. But things are getting out of hand. The war comes first Jazz."

"Prowl."

"Thank you... thank you for listening, for talking with me. But I know what I have to do. I will take care of it." He could tell from Jazz's fidgeting that the other knew what he was planning and disapproved.

"Prowl, you shouldn't do this." Jazz said finally as Prowl carefully got up from the medical berth.

"If you can give me a sound logical reason"

"Well how about the whole ' _don't ruin your emotional health_ ' thing?"

"Allowing this to continue is what is damaging the emotional center of my processor." Prowl said voice cool, expressionless.

"Or you could, Ah don't know, FACE THE PROBLEM HEAD ON." Jazz snapped. "Running like a coward doesn't suit you Prowler."

Prowl gave him a look of cold disapproval. "And do _what_? Confess my undying love? Because it _isn't_ undying and it _isn't_ love and it _is_ getting in the way of _important_ things. It is _my job_  to keep everyone _safe_. I _cannot afford_  such distractions." Why couldn't Jazz understand?

"Love conquers all!" Jazz snarled, possibly the most ludicrous Prowl had heard the mech say since they awoke on earth.

"Don't be stupid. It's tactics and logic, skill and determination that conquers."

"And _love_ is what motivates us to move past our own _SELFISHNESS_ to do what needs to be done, to _triumph_ over the unbeatable odds." Jazz's engine was snarling almost as much as his voice now, his stance that of a predator about to pounce. Few ever saw him this worked up, and when they did, they quite wisely fled.

Prowl on the other hand stayed stock still, posture rigid, optics cold as the heart of winter itself. His doorwings flared, angling upward, with the faint edge of icy temper that was all that he could still feel. Why couldn't he understand? He thought Jazz, of all those that surrounded him, knew who he was, what was in his spark. "That is exactly it." He said, voice frosty. He shuttered his optics briefly, venting deeply in preparation, then opening them again to match his opposite’s glare with cool impassivity, Jazz's emotional fire with rational fact. "I love the other Autobots too much to do indulge in any selfishness that could risk them unnecessarily. So long as Megatron lives, so long as the war continues, I will not allow my own wants and needs to interfere with my work. I _will_ end this problem in whatever way necessary." It would take a while, and he still had so much work to catch up on, but he would gather it all together, every scrap of this human who had so unknowingly invaded his every thought, and burn it all away as he had the other distractions that had threatened in times before.

Jazz was stunned into silence, mouth hanging half open. Prowl turned, heading out, back to his office for work and Jazz swore, stumbling after him. "Prowl, I didn't mean, Primus, Prowl?" but the other was moving swiftly, not even Ratchet being able to slow him, only the downward droop to his doorwings evidence of the deep distress he hid behind his professional work mask. As he watched, Jazz wondered if this had happened before, if there were other times his stupidest-genius-ever friend had felt the stirrings of love only to decide to delete it away. If this was the result, and the reasoning, then he had a sinking feeling the answer was a resounding yes.

  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

  
"Hey! The giant robots are at it again!" Someone called and half the room's occupants stood to go cluster around the TV where, as stated, the giant robots were having an epic shootout near what was probably some sort of power plant. How long had it been since they had first showed up? Eight months? Nine? Not quite a year yet, she knew that for certain, but still long enough that it was no longer surprising to have whatever was going on be cut over by one of the rare live broadcasts of the actual battle. Live footage was always tricky to get since one group of the robots actively tried to evacuate all humans from anywhere near the battle, and the other seemed to be split between enjoying killing humans and ignoring them so completely as to tread on them by accident and complain about the mess. Getting close enough to get even a mediocre shot of the action was dangerous but reporters were a crazy lot to begin with.

Honestly everything about the giant robots was dangerous. It was true that, so far, there had been very few casualties due to the 'evacuate all humans' ones but many had still been hurt and there was certainly a huge amount of property damage, and horrible blackouts and all sorts of other problems. They caused disasters and chaos wherever they went. There was absolutely _no reason_ to get excited to hear that the giant robots were fighting again, no reason for the strange fan groups that were cropping up. No reason _at all_.

Except it was pretty ridiculously awesome. Technology was finally getting to the point where humans could start building robots and suddenly these giant, super advanced, alien ones show up? It was amazing. She'd seen enough of 'real life' robots to know how pathetically uncoordinated and simplistic they were, and then suddenly these giant metal monsters were duking it out over energy cubes and power plants and setting all the rules of what people thought was possible at defiance.

It had finally been long enough that some of the edge of excitement over the earth's visitors had waned, life rolled on, work still had to be done, bills still needed to be paid. And humans, in their typical way, had adapted to this new normal. Not that people had lost interest in the giant machines and their laser rifles and knock down drag out brawls, but it no longer had that sharp tang of urgency, life no longer came to a standstill when the fights happened. Many still watched with baited breath but others were content to record it to watch later or hear about it later second hand.

She had always pretended not to be impressed, she was not someone who would just go along with every new trend or fad, and she was pretty good at playing it off but... it was just _amazing_. There was something incredibly inspiring about watching them charge into battle, good versus evil, with reckless courage and, in the cases of the 'destroy humans' ones, making a mock of things like gravity and aerodynamics. You watched them and you'd think just about anything was possible even in a day and age where all the world said otherwise. It made your heart, it made _her_ heart, swell.

All in all, it was kinda lucky that, while earth had been unfortunate enough to draw the attention of evil energy stealing robots, they'd managed to attract some that were programed to 'protect and preserve' too.

She watched the unfolding scene on the screen, the giant robots fighting and shooting each other and generally wrecking their surroundings and something occurred to her. "Hey, what's the black and white one called?" She asked a man standing near her wearing a shirt with one of the team emblems on it.

"Hm? Oh that's Jazz." The young man grinned. "He's awesome. Hear he's really into music and stuff."

"Oh." She couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed, but it had been a silly silly thought. But then again, Jazz was a strange name all right. "The yellow one is called Bumblebee right?"

"Yeah, he's always visiting the cities east of here, I have a friend who met him at some arcade, he was beating the crap out of some robot game, go figure right?" The young man continued excitedly but she wasn't really listening anymore.

Prowl wasn't a strange name where he came from huh? A faint smile tugged at her lips. Gotcha.

  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

  
"Sir." Ratchet gazed at the Prime with worried optics. "I don't know what is wrong with him. But... I think he is dying. I am not sure _why_ , but the stress... it's aging him, he is starting to fail. He has admitted he is going through some sort of emotional upheaval but has otherwise been tight lipped about the whole thing. Thanks to his over developed logic center he has always struggled with his feelings... I'm afraid if he doesn't open up and talk to someone soon..." The medic shook his helm, unable to speak his fears. They all relied so much on Prowl, beyond simple battle tactics he kept everything running smoothly, shifts, supplies, human relations, everything. Optimus was their leader but it was _Prowl_ who kept everything organized and tempers calm, made sure everything was fair and taken care of. Already things were getting messy simply because the SiC was out of sorts, he dreaded what would happen if they lost him for good. "I am going to have to recommend he be taken off of active duty until his condition stabilizes."

Optimus Prime was silent for a long while. Long enough for any other bot to have started fidgeting with nerves. Ratchet merely crossed his arms over his chestplates with an increasing glower. Surely Prime wasn't thinking of...

Optimus exvented harshly, hands coming to rest on the desk in front of him. "I'm sorry Ratchet. Something big is coming, we need, _I_ need him now." Optimus looked troubled but resolute.

"Prime!" Ratchet gestured angrily. "Did you not _hear_ what I just said?! The mech is dying. _DYING_!" He slammed his hands down on the Prime's desk for emphasis.

"You said you _think_ he is dying." Prime replied voice calm though his field roiled with conflicted emotions. "I just need him to hold together a little longer, once this current threat is ended we can"

"Once the current threat is over? Prime! The threat is _never_ over!"

"I mean" Optimus growled, "Megatron's _current_ scheme. The intelligence we've been able to-" he started but Ratchet cut him off again.

"Oh? And what about the threat after that? And the threat after that? There will always be another threat Optimus! He needs help _now_. _Before_ he breaks, not after!" Ratchet bellowed, thrashing the air with his fists and pounding dents into the poor abused desk.

Ratchet fell silent and glared at Optimus Prime, who said nothing, field rippling with conflicted emotions, the need to protect, the need to fight, concern, worry, determination, fear, the internal conflict between the coding to protect his Autobots, and to destroy the enemy that threatened them all.

"You said he needs to talk to someone? Doesn't he usually talk to Jazz about his emotional issues?" The Prime offered in a conciliatory grumble.

Ratchet huffed and folded his arms, glad that the Prime was _finally_ listening to him. "Yes he does, or you I think, but for whatever reason he is being as tight lipped with Jazz as with the rest of us."

"Hmm.... and you don't know what exactly it is causing all this trouble in the first place?"

"No. He was, he _seemed_ happy at first, now it's... devolving into depression? I don't know." Ratchet shook his head. He still remembered the pathetic huddled figure in the cell, bound tightly to keep from hurting itself all those ages ago. Primus don't let Prowl become that again. "I think he's trying to repress instead of address. Once he talks about it he'll be able to deal with what is bothering him and move forward again."

"What does _Jazz_ think the problem is?"

Ratchet let out a grumble, muttering his response too low to be heard. Optimus stared at him intently, optics boring into the medic. Ratchet muttered a couple curses and then repeated himself audibly. "Jazz thinks he is in love."

Optimus Prime's processor let out a pre-logic-center-crash whine as his cooling fan kicked on in an effort to prevent literal meltdown. Perfect, just perfect. Optimus Prime having a crash was EXACTLY what they needed right now. The hum ceased as a conclusion was reached. "You are joking." The Prime stated flatly.

If only. "No I'm not." Ratchet said with a sigh. "And I'm afraid Jazz wasn't either. He seemed pretty convinced."

Again a long pause as the Prime considered, trying to fit the new ideas into what he already knew and believed. "What? Now? You, You're sure?"

"Yes..."

And then Optimus's expression changed, the crinkling around his optics, the sudden lift to his posture. Oh no. No not this. Ratchet just knew, KNEW, that under the stern battlemask his Prime was grinning like an over delighted human child. It was his 'sparks and rainbows' expression, hidden under there. "This is _wonderful_! Who is the lucky mech?"

"Optimus Prime! This is NO TIME to indulge in your hobby of playing matchmaker. Primus! I _never_ should have let you idiots watch those pit cursed human soap operas, made this whole problem _ten times worse_."

"But why now? Why of all times now?" The Prime mused, rubbing his chin with one massive hand, clearly ignoring Ratchet's quite _reasonable_ objections. "It's not as if he's met anyone new here, no native mechanisms, just us and the Decepticons. And he's known all the bots on the Ark for over a million years before he even _considered_ them for selection for this mission to find new sources of energy to revive Cybertron. Do you think it is something in the air? Or perhaps just the change in pace, the new environment making him view that special someone in a new light." Optimus let out a pleased rumble. "Do you think it's Bumblebee? Probably is, he's got to be the only one who gets along with Prowl beyond the other officers. _Oh!_ And Prowl is always so strict about propriety! It's the classic cross station romance! He can't admit to his feelings or-

"No Optimus-

"-but the differences in their ranks means he could never speak his true feelings because it would be inappropriate to his-

"Optimus don't-

There was a gasp and for a brief moment Ratchet though he might've been able to derail this madness but then "Do you think it might be _Jazz_?"

Ratchet stared blankly. "Whut?"

"Don't you _see_?! That's why he can't talk to Jazz about it! Because it's him! He is too afraid to admit his feelings! Can't endanger his relationship with him. Jazz is his rock and anchor, one of the few Prowl has allowed himself to bind to, along with myself. And now, in this new world a stirring has awakened in his-

Ratchet couldn't take it a moment longer. He bashed one of his favorite wrenches into the side of the Autobot leader's helm, cutting him off mid rant. Optimus staggered slightly while still seated, and gave Ratchet the 'wounded turbopuppy' look he had mastered so long ago. "No." Ratchet said.

"But but Ratchet, it's... it's _true love_."

Ratchet felt he was about to blow a gasket. "YOU DON'T _KNOW_ THAT! WE DON'T _KNOW_ ANYTHING! OUR SIC IS HAVING A MELTDOWN AND ALL YOU CAN THINK ABOUT IS YOUR STUPID-

A blaring alarm drowned out the rest of his words. Optimus was on his feet and heading toward the command center immediately. "Decepticons. Teletran-1, what is the situation?" The Autobot leader was bellowing as soon as the door between his private office and the command center was open.

Ratchet swore but Optimus Prime was now in battle mode, there would be no reasoning with him now. Perhaps Ratchet was just going to have to refuse to release Prowl from medbay after the battle until this problem was resolved. Assuming that Prowl survived the next battle.

"Ratchet! I need you to get Prowl! Teletran-1 says he's still in his quarters for some reason, I don't think he heard the alarm. I don't care what it takes I need you to get him up and able, this is going to be a bad one."

  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

  
Prowl huddled against the wall, doorwings parallel to his back and drooped so far downward they looked broken. They felt broken too, heavy and dead, pulling on hinges already strained by the steep angle. Damage warnings flashed dully on his HUD but he could not feel the pain of it. He almost wished he could, feeling the pain would be better than this aching numbness, would serve as at least a small distraction from what was going on inside. His arms were wrapped tight around him, desperately clutched as if they were the only thing keeping him from coming apart at the seams, while his knees were pulled up close against them. His entire frame curled into as much of a ball as his strained joints would allow, shaking every once in a while with his soft, agonized sobs. His frame listed to the side, helm eventually thunking into the other wall of the back corner of his berthroom. He just hurt so much, pain rising and falling in waves. Again he tried to execute the code that would remove the memories and feelings of his special little human but found his processor failing and stuttering once again as a fresh wave of agony came over him. Never see her again, never hear her voice, never remember her small warm body saved from disaster. A sob wrenched its way free of his vocalizer and his plating rattled loosely.

Why was this so _hard_? It was the logical thing to do, it was important. Autobots were being harmed because of this oversight, this distraction he allowed, and would continue to be harmed by it. It was bad enough losing mechs to the brutality of war but what if next time his little human's name popped up in battle he made a mistake that cost someone's life? He _couldn't_ let this continue, he couldn't risk the lives of any of the others just for the wan comfort of these memories, this false connection. But he found he couldn't let go of it either, something inside him refusing to allow him to wipe it all away forever. He wanted this so so much. And he wanted so much to be free of it too. To go back to how he used to be, cool collected logical, the answers mech, watching over everyone, keeping them safe. He had a _purpose_ , a function, as part of the Autobot army. It was a good function. Maybe he hadn't always been happy but he didn't _need_ happiness. He had a job and he did it, he kept everyone safe, as safe as they could be in an endless war, and there was great satisfaction in watching over them, in seeing them come home alive none missing, knowing he had done his best, and that they had once again been spared that final awful fate. But now... these distractions put everyone at risk. His own spark felt like it was tearing itself apart.

Logic. Logic had always saved him before. It had pulled him through the darkest moments of his function, it preserved his life and the lives of his fellow Autobots. But now it failed him, unable to overcome this pathetic, pitiful desire to cling to these unnecessary thoughts and memories, these foolish fantasies that damaged his efficiency, his very frame, and put all the others at risk. Again he tried to execute the code that would free him, but he could hardly even focus on it hard enough to make the attempt. He sobbed, frame curling tighter, joints warping, clutching close in agony, feeling he was being torn in two. Battle was better than this, fast chaotic, sensors set on high, battle computer running hot as it fought to find the way to victory and survival for his Autobots in ever changing circumstances. This... this was a matter of willpower, no carefully constructed plan or tactic could help him. Indeed there _shouldn'_ t have been anything to stop him from executing this single line of code that would activate the program to flush her from his system. And yet there it was, undeniable and stubborn, breaking him each time he tried to free himself.

Pathetic. Pitiful. Weak. He wasn't enough, not strong enough, not stubborn enough, not _mech_ enough, to do what had to be done. Those were all the things he identified himself as, he always did what had to be done, no matter the cost. But this he could not do, even though the cost was the least of all, just a simple personal cost, no lives or comfort of others to be sacrificed, just a small price of his own and this danger would threaten no longer. And yet he couldn't do it. Who was he then? What was he? He certainly wasn't Prowl SiC of the Autobots anymore, not weak and emotionally compromised as he was now. So who was he? What was his purpose? Why was he here, and alive, when so many billions of others were dead? What use was he if he couldn't help end the war that had cost so much? How could he pay his debt to the dead if he could _no longer do what was needed_? How could he justify his continued existence in the face of that?

Warnings popped up, smoke detected in high quantities, circuits and fuses blown throughout his frame but not enough to knock him offline or trigger a crash. No, there would be no escape from this agony, not until he found a way to push through to complete his objective or surrendered to his weakness, admitting once and for all that he did not, in fact, deserve his continued function, no longer able to fulfill the purpose that kept the shadows at bay. Useless. If he couldn't do this he would be useless, a broken mech dragging himself along, no longer able to fulfill his duties or do his part in this war. A useless burned out husk. Good for nothing but the scrapyard. If he gave up, he might as well be greyed out already. So stupid, this attachment, with no real grounds to base it on, and yet it seemed that it would destroy him anyway. Alone, in the dark, he sobbed softly, spark wrenching as he began keening softly, not wanting any to hear and find him compromised in this moment of weakness. So, so alone. In all the world he was the only one, and he wasn't even himself anymore, just a shadow of what the Autobot SiC had been.


	6. The Fall of Praxus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What? You thought I'd resolve last week's cliffhanger this week?  
> This pretty much proves that I really _am_ evil.
> 
> Past Prowl is even worse at people skills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part one. This chapter's been making me crazy, so I'm posting it as two parts, each less than a week apart, so we should get back to cute Prowl/reader fluff soon. But if I post it as two halves then maybe half two will stop being a brat face! Dang it Jazz! You are tripping me up! D:<

When the news came that Praxus had been destroyed Prowl was not surprised. Indeed he did not appear to react at all to the courier, simply nodding and dismissing them to get back to his work. Every orn he onlined to the day's numbers, the probability that Megatron would make an example of a Neutral City that very day (the warlord was bound to do it sooner or later) and the precise percentages of probability it would be each of the different cities. These numbers were based on countless scraps of information, big and small, troop movements, supply lines, the debts of merchants, words whispered behind closed doors, migration patterns, gross sales of rare metals, political details, and a thousand more things, most of them details that few ever considered relevant. Sometimes Prowl despaired at the poor quality of information the intelligence officers and soldiers supplied him. They never seemed to realize the importance of certain small details that were so obvious to him. The tactical computer's calculations were only as accurate as the data it was fed. Slowly the intelligence officers were learning, his stern words and lessons slowly opening their optics to what sat right before them, learning to discern what information was significant and what was not. If he could have, Prowl would have read every report of each individual soldier in the army. But now that he was part of the high command of the entire Autobot army, instead of just a sector of the planet, he could no longer indulge in such and had been fighting to teach those who were to act as his audials and sensor wings in this war so they would understand what information to pass on up to him, what small details he needed to do his job. The special ops agents, canny and sly, were learning it so much faster, and he read all of their reports himself. Of all his sources of information they were the best with the exception of Jazz. Jazz still hated him with incredible ferocity and, out of what must certainly (92.345%) be stubborn defiance, kept his initial reports brief to the point of being completely empty and fought Prowl denta and claw for every scrap of information the chief tactician needed to do his _JOB_.

He had actually been reading one such report, the fifth version of Jazz's most recent mission, swallowing the data down as numbers ran and danced in his processor, calculating, shifting, changing, recalculating, the future seeming to clarify before his very optics as probabilities were calculated and scenarios run. If he ever got Jazz to just do things right the first time the texture of the whole war would change (83.683%). Of all those he worked with Jazz was the one who read best the writing on the walls, if only he wasn't just so stubbornly _contrary_. Prowl almost didn't notice the courier enter his office, his sensor wings twitching automatically as they noted a change and ran a full scan of the room. As the courier was silent and did not immediately approach, Prowl finished the section he was reading before setting the datapad down.

"What is it?" He asked, voice cool and neutral as numbers still ran by, scenario after scenario running through his battle computer as he focused his consciousness on the mech in front of him.

"I, er... a message from... from... from..." Prowl blinked slowly, venting evenly and silently in an effort not to further upset the courier with sudden movements or sounds. Instead it seemed to unnerve the bot. "It's from G-general Lever s-sir. The De-decepticons at-tacked Praxus. It... it has been razed to the ground."

Prowl blinked again, the numbers in his helm rearranging. Praxus destroyed. That fact changed quite a lot, so many things had changed, and would change as the news spread. In a small part of himself he _wished_ he could be surprised but he knew the danger, the probabilities, and, while the probability of the attack each individual orn was extremely low, it had been inevitable, only the target had not been known for certain. He reviewed his contingency plan, reviewing all the things he needed to do or take with him, categorizing, prioritizing, evaluating as the numbers in his expanded databanks shifted and changed to keep up with an ever changing world.

"Sir?" The courier was still there.

Prowl looked up at him. "Do you have anything else to report?" He asked tonelessly.

"N-no sir. But... but..." The courier had such an appalled look on his face, similar to those he'd seen on soldiers viewing torture victims for the first time. "You're from Praxus aren't you?"

"Yes. It is usually difficult for anyone to mistake me for anything other than Praxian." Prowl said, simple statement of fact. "You are dismissed." His gaze went down to the datapad in his hand, he had much to do before he could leave.

"But... it's your home. Don't... don't you care?"

Prowl's sensor wings gave a faint twitch of annoyance. "Of course I care. Now get going, we both have work to be done." His battle computer was moving on to calculating the probability of Megatron making an example of another Neutral city in the next vorn as he continued reading Jazz's report. He needed those numbers to assess the risks to the other cities. Perhaps after one had been attacked the others would be more inclined to listen when he told them the war would not allow them to remain neutral. Such a waste of life, but perhaps he could use it to prevent, or at least mitigate, further bloodbaths.

"They are right... you really _are_ empty inside." The courier said, venom dripping from each word. Then he left, slamming the door behind him. Prowl sighed softly, feeling a deep familiar ache in his chest where his spark should have been. A number, one in particular, kept coming up again and again. But there wasn't time for that now. He had things he had to do before he could leave and not much time to do them. He could think about how many had died, how many he had failed to protect, once he was on the road to Praxus.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

Prowl submitted the form, fully authorized, and shut down the datapad. Clearing off time was so much faster and easier when you were the one in charge of the schedules. Something almost like a smile came to his lips, though no smile would ever look so much like despair. That was the last of it. Carefully he cleaned his desk, subspacing some of the datapads and filing others. Once he was done he did a final sweep of his office. It was unlikely he would return to this base any time soon, Optimus Prime loved to move him to new bases every several decaorns and that time was coming up, so he left instructions on how to have everything inside dealt with if he did not return in a couple orns.

Next he went to his temporary quarters. He had few personal items and even fewer that he took with him on his frequent tours to bases outside of Iacon's walls. It was the work of a couple moments to subspace the datapad of pictures and memories and the three pieces of crystal but he paused after picking up the small model of a building. It was a solid to-scale model of the lead engineering school of Praxus. It was odd to know that the original was gone and the one who'd given this to him most certainly dead. Carefully he subspaced the small item and then did a final check of the room. Nothing else of his and everything in place. It looked exactly the same as when he had first arrived four decaorn ago, as if no one had been there at all. Prowl left the room swiftly.

The last stop was the mess hall. It was mid shift, one of the less busy times, but there were still plenty of soldiers in the room. Silently and efficiently Prowl went and began filling cubes and storing them in his subspace. It was a long way to Praxus, he would need fuel to get there and return. It was illogical to trust he would be able to get provisions on the other end of his journey, depending on how many wounded there were all the energon at the nearby Autobot bases might be needed to tend to them. Until he got a better report on the damage to the city he would not know if more provisions would need to be sent to them but it was unlikely (0.264%) he would get the required information before the local officers dealt with the problem themselves. It was satisfying to dismiss that concern from his responsibility for now.

After cube 15 he noticed the quiet, the usual bustle and shouting of the mess hall having dropped to sullen whispers. No one was near him of course, but he could sense their optics on him. His sensor wings twitched slightly. He knew what they were talking about, the sort of things they were saying. And now he was loading up on what looked like an excessive amount of energon, though perfectly calculated for his purpose. 74.523% chance that more than half of them now believed he had finally 'cracked under the pressure' as it was usually phrased. That didn't matter. It didn't matter what they thought of him. A simple check with a medic when he had time, assuming he was not reassigned before he could return from Praxus, would give sufficient evidence against insanity for those here who tried to use the claim as an excuse not to obey orders.

It didn't matter if they hated him. It didn't matter if they thought he was insane. It didn't matter if he was nothing more than a machine spouting numbers to guide and protect the Autobots in this war. This was his _function_ , nothing that failed to interfere with that mattered.

It didn't matter that he was empty inside.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

Prowl had been on the road for over 5 joors when Jazz caught up. Prowl was not surprised to see the special ops agent, Jazz was his keeper after all, and it would not have taken long for them to send him after Prowl, either thinking Prowl had gone AWOL (72.647% chance they would not notice he had submitted all the proper paperwork for another two orns) or simply because Jazz's first responsibility, since he wasn't on an ops mission at the moment, was to keep an optic on Prowl. Nor was he surprised at how quickly the other had figured out where Prowl was headed and caught up. The ex-enforcer spun a quick circle in acknowledgement of the other and kept going at the same rapid speed that he could, and intended to, keep up the rest of the orn. Cybertron was a large planet, and plotting a course from one sector to another was a trick with shifting battlefronts and enemy patrols, but he had still managed to find a decently direct path to Praxus from the base. As he drove his processor and battle computer were running running running. He had too much work to do to actually take the time off, he still had work to do and by stopping briefly once a joor he was able to record his progress on datapads stored in his subspace and load up a new set of information and calculations to work on as he drove.

Apparently his little trick with his alt mode was not acknowledgement enough for the ops agent because soon Jazz was pinging Prowl. The tactician ignored it at first, working on a complex problem of supply lines, but Jazz continued to ping, revving his engine angrily and even making a close pass by Prowl nearly clipping him. {I filled out all the appropriate paperwork and had it approved. Is there anything else you require?} His voice over the comms sounded slightly more tense than his usual monotone even to himself.

{And where exactly do you think you are going?} Jazz growled back. {You think you can just ditch your work without them sending me to haul you back?}

{You know where I am going, and I am certain you know why as well.}

{Using your rank to give yourself immediate off time? Ah thought your _rules_ kept you from pulling slag like that.} More than just the spy's engine was snarling now. {Optimus _assigned_ you to Fort Treble and Fort Treble is where you are going to _stay_ until Optimus okays you to go to the next location.}

{I am going to Praxus. I have things worked out so that this trip will not prevent me from completing my assigned tasks.}

{Going there to do _what_? Dance on the ruin of the city that kicked you out?}

Prowl's engine stuttered. But then very very few had known why he had chosen to work outside of Praxus even _before_ the war had begun. {I would never do such a thing. Praxus is my _home_. I know it better than any outsider and I would feel remiss if I did not lend my aid in the rescue efforts.}

{I am taking you back to Fort Treble.}

{Cease your threatening. If you were going to drag me back you would have attempted it already. I have work to do.} Prowl cut off the transmission going back to his calculations. Again Jazz was pinging him. {What is it Jazz?}

{Going there will not make anyone less dead, nor the city less destroyed.} Jazz's voice was slightly sullen now, calculating and suspicious, but at least less snarly.

{I must go to Praxus.}

{Why? I of all people know you aren't the sentimental type.}

Prowl paused. Why exactly? There was the 'lend aid' answer that presented itself immediately every time he examined the question but was there more to it? {My family was there. Depending on the damage it is extremely likely they are all now deceased.}

{That could have waited. _Everyone_ loses friends and family in war but everyone else has to wait until they can get some off time to go visit the graves. What is this really about?}

{They are my people. I must offer what aid I can.}

{If any of that aid includes the words 'I told you so' I _WILL_ shoot you.} Jazz growled and broke the transmission.

It was a fair assertion, if Prowl did speak those words to any he would deserve to be shot, and it wouldn't be the first time his logic set him saying words that offended. But even he knew better than to speak those ones under these circumstances. Even if he _had_ told them so, over and over and over, warning them to prepare, calling them to action, and they had not. How many innocents had died for the stubborn pride of the Praxian council? And a small selfish part of him wished it had not been his people that had died for the stubbornness of the neutrals. He'd warned them all, seeing so clearly the looming threat. But they had not listened and now Praxus was destroyed. What was the point of knowing all these numbers if no one would listen? But the Autobots listened, even if they did not wish to, and he got them killed, orn after orn after orn, because in war you never could save everyone.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

It was deep into the night cycle the next time Jazz initiated contact. Prowl was busy recording on a datapad the plans he had made during the joor since the last break, so deep in concentration he almost didn't notice Jazz until the mech was practically on top of him. As it was his tactical programming dismissed him as a non-threat before the notice got so far as his consciousness and while he didn't quite jump when Jazz's hand came down on his shoulder, he startled and lost his place in the data he was recording. "Prowl, you need to rest." Jazz said in a steady voice that gave nothing away.

Prowl turned his helm to regard the other bot. He checked his chronometer, it was far past when he would have normally gone into recharge. Still, his frame was not in any way unfit. "You may rest if you need to." Prowl said turning back to his work.

"We _both_ need to." Jazz gave Prowl a little shake to keep the tactician from re-immersing himself.

Prowl let out a soft huff and shut off the datapad knowing he would not get to finish his work until he'd dealt with the other. He looked Jazz up and down. The saboteur was tired, though his posture and training would have masked it from anyone less attentive than Prowl, but Prowl was always attentive.

Numbers shifted around in Prowl's processor, evaluating the special ops agent. This last mission had been hard on Jazz, the fight over the report just another layer of the mech's coping mechanisms, harassing Prowl was a way he worked off nervous energy and bitter emotions. Usually he would still be mostly cloistered in his quarters, only emerging for brief, over-enthusiastic socialization or to fight with Prowl. Jazz would need rest. He also needed the sort of emotional support Prowl sometimes was able to supply but Jazz usually sought elsewhere.

No, not this time. He couldn't help. He needed to get to Praxus, entire frame aching with the need. "There is a relatively safe location nearby you can get some recharge. I must continue." Without his work to focus on, and his analysis of Jazz concluded, there was nothing to keep the other things from rising, the numbers, the names, the buildings of Praxus starting to bubble to the surface.

"Prowl!" Jazz's voice was gruff as he grasped Prowl's chin in one hand, yanking his helm around until his optics were lined up with the bright blue visor. "YOU need to rest. Time to recharge, we'll get goin' again in the mornin'."

"No time."

"No time? _Primus_ Prowl, you've been pushing your limits for mor'n _half an orn_ already. You _MUST_ rest."

He could tell from the aggressive flare to Jazz's plating that the other was not going to let Prowl continue. Before even he realized what he was doing Jazz's frame slumped against him, the perfectly executed blow the the base of the back of the special op's helm knocking his processor offline in an instant. Prowl blinked, sensor wings trembling slightly in surprise as he caught the other, the one he wished he could call friend, before Jazz collapsed to the ground. Apparently all that brutal training Jazz put him through had worked, his tactical computer storing and updating a plan to take out anyone or anything in his environment at all times below his primary streams of consciousness, ready for use at any moment. More disturbing to Prowl though was the leap so soon to violence to remove the threat to his progress rather than continuing with logic and reason.

Again the numbers and faces began to rise in his mind and he shifted them away, bringing up his work while he came up with a plan to take care of Jazz. Focus on the tasks at hand, don't think about those things, don't think about the end point of his journey. Stretching his sensor wings until they stuck straight out from his back Prowl carefully slung Jazz over one shoulder. It took a couple moments to readjust them until they were moderately comfortable without smacking Jazz then he started off toward the small shelter he had mentioned earlier. As he walked he turned the datapad in his hand back on, returning to his work as he set his sensors on high alert for any danger the darkness might attempt to hide.

It took longer to reach the small shelter than Prowl would have liked but even though they were technically in Autobot territory he would not leave his friend to the small (0.002%) chance that someone unfriendly might come across him while he was helpless. Carefully he settled Jazz onto a clear spot away from the doors of the ruined building. The saboteur looked so small, almost fragile like this, the walls and false pretenses he kept up stripped away by unconsciousness. The pain so few ever seemed to notice was now on full display. Prowl felt an unpleasant tingle go through him. He shouldn't leave Jazz here alone. Bad enough he had attacked him, now abandon him too? Well he would be safe here until he came back online at least and it wasn't as if the mech didn't already hate him. Ironic that, everyone hated Prowl and everyone loved Jazz, and now that he'd seen the other's work even Prowl had grown a deep admiration of the mech and the rule applied to the two of them as well as everyone else. Even in regard TO themselves, a voice deep inside his processor whispered viciously. Prowl shivered. No. He ended that line of thought, setting his processor back to the task of his work before the self-hatred that still lurked deep inside could fully awake. He had a _purpose_ , he could not allow the darkness the Prime had dragged him from swallow him again. He was still needed.

Carefully Prowl unsubspaced several cubes of energon, setting them out near Jazz where the mech would notice them quickly but not knock them over accidentally when he first woke. He didn't know if the special ops had thought to stock up before coming after him, especially since he had probably been intending to drag Prowl back to base when he first left (63% approx). After checking his own fuel levels he unsubspaced a couple more cubes and drained them. Traveling continuously at his maximum distance sustainable speed was running through his energy remarkably fast (though not faster than his calculations had predicted) and his frame, unused to sustaining the speed for more than a joor at a time, ached everywhere. For a moment he considered laying down there near Jazz and going into recharge as well, but then there was that need, the urgency, driving his tired frame back to its pedes. Soon he was out of the ruin and back on his wheels, processor running new sets of data as he vanished into the night.

Joors past, only marked by the brief stops to record his work and load up the next set of data and problems. As night passed and the next day began his normal work ran out. So he began working on the new danger calculations for Megatron attacking the neutral cities. But he found his processor stumbling and making mistakes, the scenarios he was running too close to what he was trying not to think about. So he turned his mind to other things, battle plans, new missions, relief efforts, creating new supply routes for when current ones became compromised. Anything to block out the thoughts and memories that crept in like spilled energon under a closed door. At mid-morning he made a slight detour to stop at an Autobot base, handing over most of the data pads of his work to a courier to take back to Fort Treble where they were needed.

That wrapped up his responsibilities to that area for now. For a brief moment he felt that awful anchor-less sensation that came during that between-bases period of reassignment, and this time Jazz was not here to escort him to his next assignment by the Prime's insistence, instead the ops agent had been left far behind. But there were always new and other things he could run to keep the darkness at bay. New scenarios, mission plans, attacks to predict, he filled his processor with them as he rushed out, back on the road, pushing his engine as if exhaustion would help to hold him together.

Such a silly thought, as if there were anything left inside him to come undone. Whatever spark he might have had had been extinguished long ago. No one could survive a war like this, doing what he did, without their spark going dark. He'd sent so many to their deaths, sacrificed so many lives, ruined families, torn kinship bonds apart, watched mechs bleeding to death, screaming for help, pleading for mercy, and done nothing because his logic and calculations demanded it. He felt nothing anymore, just that emptiness, a hollowness where his spark should have been. He still did all he could to protect and preserve each life, but that was simply the nature of this war, resources conserved, a logical directive not an emotional one. There were no emotions left, he was as empty as they all accused. An empty shell animated only by the powerful tactical computer the Autobots needed with no spark inside. He could still _simulate_ emotions when it was needed, like he did with Jazz, little words or gestures here or there, or with the other command staff, the Prime especially, whatever was needful to ensure everyone continued functioning properly, that things ran smoothly. He would do whatever was needed for the cause, and that wasn't always a good thing. What a terrible monster he was, pretending to be a person when all he was was an empty sparkless machine. But the Prime needed to believe that there was a mech inside this shell who valued the Autobots as individuals not just numbers, so he continued the act even though he knew it was a lie. The others were right, in their accusations that he didn't care about the lives he'd ended, you needed a spark to care, and he was empty inside, just as they said. The emptiness ached dully, like an unhealed wound, as if the surrounding systems could not adjust to the patch of cold where the warmth of a spark should have been.

Occasionally he wondered how long ago it had gone out, when Prowl the mech had died leaving only the tactical computer behind, still running, still fulfilling its function as the tactical commander of the Autobots. There was no way he could know though, he couldn't recall what it was like to feel even to try to see if it existed in the memories stored in his data banks. Surely before the war he had felt, he reasoned, but there were times he questioned even that. Had he ever truly felt anything? Had Prowl ever really existed? Or had it always been the battle computer, from the very start, given a frame and voice for ease of access for those who needed it?

But these thoughts were of no value, they solved nothing and wasted time that could be spent on other things. Soon he would be able to get his first look at what remained of Praxus and then the plans and calculations would begin of how he could aid in rescue efforts, in the search and care for survivors. There was not much time left for him to spend on other things. In fact, he should have been able to see the ruin already. With an internal frown Prowl checked his stored maps and data on landmarks, comparing it to what he could detect now and what he had passed to get to this point. Abruptly his wheels locked and he skidded a long way before coming to a stop. His calculations of his location had not been wrong, he _should_ have been able to see the ruins of Praxus from where he was now.

For a while he just stayed there, immobilized, then a shudder coursed through his frame. He had thought he was prepared for what he would find at the end of his journey.

He had been wrong.


	7. Broken Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate Title: Forced Meeting  
> Or: Can't Fight Fate  
>  _Or_ : Primus Puts His Foot _DOWN_  
>  "Down Down Down! D! O! W! N! DOWN!" -Candace Flynn ~Phineas and Ferb  
> Dang it Prowl! If Primus says for you to be happy you'd better be happy!  
> And how many times does he have to throw a cute girl at you before you realize He's the one doing it?

Prowl had been badly hurt in battle before. It was something that happened in war. Some times were worse than others. This was one of the worse ones, by quite a lot actually. Vision was out, audio full of static, auxiliary sensors mostly returning only garbage, at least, those that were not numbed completely silent. Something had happened, well clearly a _lot_ of things had happened, but something more specific to cause this... Ratchet had done one of those treatments, the one that made most of the data coming in from his doorwings go silent, which meant one or both of them had been badly damaged and Ratchet had begun field treatment on them before... whatever else that had happened had, well, happened. His processor felt fuzzy and the sound of fighting, of battle suddenly made itself heard over the disorienting static and ringing in his audials. He was in bad shape, even his processor seeming to stutter and fuzz as he tried to concentrate. He tried to move and made a discovery. Okay that wasn't so- oh. Okay. Make that _two_ discoveries. He was in his alt-mode, and he was stuck that way. Damage and error warnings were flashing vaguely on his HUD now that he was able to concentrate on it a little harder. Bad shape, and near battle, not even his processor fully functional and unable to transform. Something over him, sounded like concrete? a building of some sort? Was making unpleasant sounds that meant it was going to fall on him. With a groan Prowl tried to start his engine. The nose of his alt-mode was compacted, nearly crushed to half of its natural size. His engine was damaged but by some miracle it still managed to start on the third try and Prowl carefully, very carefully, dragged himself forward. Bits of rubble came down on him as he progressed and after a while he heard the structure him behind him collapse, but somehow he had pulled free before being buried.

Prowl let out a groan and dragged himself a bit further, doing his best to get his sensors online to give him an idea of his surroundings so he wasn't driving completely blind. Vague impressions were all that he got back, and pain, lots and lots of pain.

There were limits. Everyone had their limits. Prowl was at his. His battle computer was firmly offline, his processor suffering either significant physical damage or some sort of partial crash suspension, most of his sensors were offline and much of what still functioned was too badly damaged to help much, his frame hurt in so many ways and places he couldn't even begin to figure out exactly _how_  he felt. Hadn't he been hearing battle just a little while before? Now, well he couldn't tell any more. Oh well. He was practically deaf and blind and trapped in his alt-mode. At this point he was a liability so returning to battle was foolish, but at least there was no longer a building trying to collapse on him. Every survival protocol he had was demanding he find some quiet hole to hide in until his allies could find and repair him. Prowl let his engine stall then go silent. He was exhausted, probably losing energon too if the warning lights on his HUD were accurate, or if he was reading them correctly. There was little if nothing he could do as he was now. A few lines of code set maximum priority to auto-repair systems and let himself drift offline. Either he would be better off when he woke or he wouldn't wake at all and at this point he was too tired and hurting to care which.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes everyone dreamed that their crap job would go up in flames, the entire thing destroyed by a terrible accident that meant you really _could_  sleep in a couple more hours that one morning when getting up seemed a fate worse than death. But the dream of it was a far cry from the reality. You never actually _wanted_  it to happen, because then you would lose your crap (or good/great/bearable/awesome) job, and jobs were important, jobs were valuable, jobs kept food on the table, and you with a warm bed under a roof.

Her job was gone. The building was little more than a heap of rubble. It was a bit sad, she had a couple silly desk ornaments that would be lost now. Some people, the bravest for now, were walking about, poking around in the ruins. For the most part, the damaged part of downtown was sectioned off for emergency workers only and, of course, the bots.

The bots. A faint flutter went through her at the thought. It was stupid, so ridiculously stupid, something Tiff levels of romanticized stupidity, but it was there. Sometimes you just couldn't help it. Prowl. She had never expected to ever be close enough to one of the giant robot battles to ever catch a glimpse of any of the bots in person but this time... except it hadn't worked. She'd managed to sneak in through the perimeter of where they were holding people back from (being really stoooooooopid) getting too close to the crossfire, but while buildings had been broken and collapsed and lasers had fired and giant metal car and plane men punched the crap out of each other she hadn't caught sight of Prowl. Then again, she might have without knowing about it. She only knew what he looked like as a vehicle, even though she could guess that he was probably mostly black and white like that Jazz one she'd seen again.

Well, maybe Prowl wasn't one of the ones who got around much. She hadn't really been digging or anything but the few people she'd mentioned the name to hadn't recognized it. He might not actually be a police car that changed into a giant robot man. And yet... it fit with so many of the (admittedly few) details she had about him.

Something caught her eye. Some collapsed rubble, a wall of one building had bowed outward slanting into that of the building next to it, leaving what had been a one way entrance to a parking area as a covered alleyway with tiny glimmering blue drops of light on the ground leading to it. She looked down, there was hardly any of it but the color was so bright it seemed almost to glow. Her eyes were drawn to the covered alleyway and she saw someone's beaten up car, a bit of rubble on it, wedged into the area that, with the collapse, was not much larger than the vehicle itself. But it wasn't just anyone's car, it was Prowl's vehicle, its lights broken and shattered, its hood and nose a crumpled mess, and covered in dents and scuffs and bits of cinder blocks.

She felt an unpleasant twinge in her chest. If Prowl really was one of those transforming robots then he was really badly hurt. She hadn't wanted their second meeting to be like this. Abruptly she felt the urge to turn and run. This was no longer fun, though _why_ she had thought hunting down a giant fighting robot under the assumption that it was some car she'd met, on an actual battlefield no less, would be fun in the first place was anyone's guess. Then again, it wasn't like there was any other way she'd ever be able to find him. And if he was hurt, he needed help. And if he wasn't a robot but just a very strange human with really bad luck and was in that car he might need help too. So, logically, there was no reason to hesitate, to not go and find out.

But the thing about dreams is that they are really _really_  fun. You can imagine whatever you like and make beautiful silly stories all of your own, like Tiff was perpetually doing. But reality is always what it is, it will not change to suit your desires or romantic fancies. Once she took this step, one way or another, she would have learned truths about that mysterious Prowl who she had met that night in the rain, and many of those happy silly dreams would die, too at odds with the truth to survive. What she might learn might be very unpleasant, or boringly ordinary or a thousand other things that all boiled down to one thing. Disappointment. Reality was full of disappointment. That was why humans dreamed so much, to keep up hope and give them things to work toward, a goal to build toward. But this Prowl, thanks in no small way to Tiff, had grown into a small special place in her heart. A silly flattering warmth of something, someone looking out for her, for all she lended no credence to Tiff's stories.

Things would be different if she moved forward, and she could not guarantee they would not be worse. But there was a chance that something beautiful might come of it.

Sometimes the beauty was worth the risk.

She stepped forward to the vehicle's side.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

"Prowl? Prowl?" Light pressure on his driver's side fender. Tiny prickles went through his frame just before all the pain crashed in accompanied by a hundred error messages and warnings. Prowl let out a groan trying to figure out when and where he was. "Prowl? Hey buddy? You there?" Wait that voice, it was _her_  voice. He stammered her name and his processor crashed. But with his battle computer still inoperative it was just a minor crash, as much caused by the massive damage and erratic conflicting information coming in from his sensor net.

When his processor finished the reboot she was still there, he couldn't see her but he could feel her warmth, especially where her hands had warmed the metal of his crumpled fender, just above the wheel well. The sensors in his doorwings flared but the treatment from earlier left them still mostly offline, what data coming through garbled and conflicted. He ran some programs, clearing up the data into vague readings of his surroundings. "I heard you say my name, you can't pretend you aren't there anymore." She said, smirk evident in her voice as she leaned lightly against his side, just over his front left wheel.

"You... you shouldn't be here." He said, voice slightly garbled with static. Pit. That _wasn't_ a complete give away. How was she here even? No, don't think about that, don't question it. If he tried to calculate the probability he's be toast, not to mention it would be a terrible waste of what little resources he had left. "Go, get away. Not, not safe." Something inside him grumbled a bit, mechanisms grinding as they tried to run. Didn't she know this was a battlefield? Wasn't it?

"Why? All the fightin' robots are gone. Is it that you don't want me to get closer and see you bleeding out in the back seat of your car?" Well that would make a good alibi right? He was pretending.. pretending to be a human... sort of? Was he? Just hadn't told her? Why did his processor have to fail him now? He almost didn't notice as she leaned forward over him, trailing a hand along the strut that ran between windshield and driver's window. "Or are you worried that if I get close I'll notice there's no one inside?" She asked in a soft, low, voice that sent a shiver through him. What the pit was going on? He felt himself sag on his shocks, settling even lower on his tires. Why did this have to happen when he was so damaged he could hardly think?

"Well am I right? Are you one of those fighting robots Prowl?" She seemed almost to purr through his static-ing audials.

Prowl shivered, what was going on? Why was this happening? The program, if he'd just been able to execute it. He found himself searching through his damaged data banks for the code, desperate and frantic but his CPU was slow and guttering and... and.... and it just felt so _nice_ to have here there, soft warm touches in a world that was otherwise just pain, a kind voice reaching through the agonized confusion.

"Yes." He said suddenly, her question popping up again in his processor. And he felt the tightness inside relax, and he realized that he had given up, surrendered to his circumstances. It wasn't like there was much he could do, better just to conserve his energy and let things be. He could deal with the fallout after he'd been repaired. And after this, after a meeting like this, after having her so close and.... no, don't think about that, just focus on the here and now.

She let out a sigh, pulling away slightly and he flared his environmental sensors to 'see' what she was doing, irrational worry that she would abandon him bubbling up through the pain. He shouldn't care, but then again, stuck as he was, he needed help. "I was worried about that. Not gonna lie, you are lookin real banged up." Confused readings coming in from his mangled hood, other sensors showing that she was trailing her fingers along part that was more intact. She sounded so worried and... regretful. It made his weary spark hum softly, filling something, an emptiness he hadn't realized was there, or perhaps simply refused to acknowledge.

"I... I feel rather banged up." He replied, voice strained and crackling with static but still edged with wry humor. Humor at a time like this? But it felt right somehow. Felt. Why was everything so much about _feeling_ right now? But then how could it be otherwise with how much pain and confusion was assaulting him? In this much pain how could you think? But he was managing, at least a little.

She seemed to consider and was she... worried? Again he flared the sensors in his doorwings, but they were still numbed and he couldn't get a good look at her expression. "You... you sound pretty awful Prowl." She said, voice soft and worried. A faint pang went through him and there was a confused urge to reassure, comfort her, ease away the worry. She straightened suddenly, no longer touching him at all and he shivered faintly at the loss. "Before we go any further with this, an important question." She said, voice suddenly almost businesslike, just a hint of playfulness to the very real seriousness. "You are one of the 'we don't kill humans' robots right? Not the bad ones, right?"

"Autobot. I am an Autobot. We are friends to humans." He recited, the familiar script popping up in his processor despite the fog.

He felt her relax and then she reached out, touching the crumpled metal of his hood. He managed to muffle his cry of pain. "I thought so. See you soldiers, you are all in uniform." He realized that she was tracing his Autobrand and a shiver went through him. It seemed, disturbingly intimate somehow, especially with those small delicate fingers teasing at his most seriously injured parts. What had he crashed into? Or had crashed into him? but his damaged processor was refusing to defragment the mess of his short term memory so the battle, and the injuries from it, were a mystery for now. He let out a soft whimper and she stopped abruptly, heartbeat increasing, or perhaps not, his sensor net still wasn't totally reliable.

"Does... does it hurt?" She asked voice perplexed, hovering over him.

"Yes. I am severely damaged. _Everything_ hurts."

"Sorry." she hesitated and pulled away. Was she biting her lip? He flared his sensors again, though the effort tired him. What a strange thing to do. "I've... I've heard a lot of people talk about you robots... and they all have different thoughts and opinions on what you are, what you are like, things like that... but I've never met one. Well other than you that night you saved me." She paused a moment. "You did save me didn't you. I really was in danger."

Those words indicated a query, but her tone of voice was that of grim statement not questioning. He decided to treat it as a question anyway. "Yes. Hypothermia. Dangerously low body temperature and wet." He said, a slightly awkward report.

"I never got to thank you for that." She said softly.

Okay, all memory files were fuzzy right now from the processor damage but he _did_  remember that first meeting well enough to know she had thanked him. "You did actually."

"Well, yeah, I did" she said a bit flustered almost flippant "But I didn't get to _really_  thank you. I mean, I didn't really understand how much you'd done and how much-" She cut off suddenly and his temperature readings indicated her face had warmed suddenly by quite a bit, though exact numbers eluded him. "Sorry. I'm rambling. And you are the one in danger this time." She said softly and reached out to stroke her fingers along part of his hood that wasn't damaged. The faint pressure still sent faint twinges to the part that was, but it was far less. He was so tired, so broken and worn out. She stopped again. "Did that hurt too?"

He hadn't thought he'd made a sound. "Ye-esh..." The static blurred the word and he winced in embarrassment. "Not mush... just-t a little."

She hesitated and then he felt a pressure on his hood lift and realized she was carefully removing small bits of what, rock? bricks? cement? off of him. He'd forgotten about the debris that had fallen on him, the dents and weight just blurring into the general pain and damage warnings. "I... now I know this sounds bad, but I didn't... I didn't know you carbots _could_ feel pain." She said, sounding a bit nervous, embarrassed.

It suddenly seemed rather silly to him, her hanging around, _touching_  him when what he really needed, what she really _should_  do, was to find the other Autobots to get him some help. The other Autobots. There had been a fight, and he had been neutralized, though not killed, instead of seeing it through. Worry flared through him and he struggled to gather his wits, focus his processors. "The otherss-s. Are they alrigh-ght?" He rocked slightly on his wheels, frame trying to move though his engine was still and cold.

He tried transforming, alerts flaring, crumpled dented plating shifting. It _hurt_. Two small hands slammed down on his hood just below the windshield "Stop! Prowl! Don't do that!" startled he obeyed, internal mechanisms stilling, parts settling back into place for his vehicle mode. "Oh man Prowl, oh man. That sounded awful, I mean, I don't know anything about you, or your kind, but I know grinding metal when I hear it, that can't be, can't be right." She stammered frantically, hands on his hood shaking slightly.

"The... others..." Prowl insisted again, when the pain faded enough he could think straight.

"The others? Oh, the robots, the good ones, they are okay. They won I think, and I don't think any of them were destroyed or anything, but they were all really tired I guess? Most of them went back immediately and only a couple stuck around for a while to make sure any humans who hadn't evacuated fast enough and got caught in collapsing buildings were okay." Prowl sagged with relief. So tired. His human was talking still, her voice soft and melodic, fading away along with the data from his other sensors...

Something struck his side hard, metal plating reverberating. Pain. Injured. Battle. Again the strike. Captured by Decepticons? Torturing him? His audio feed came back on abruptly. "Prowl! Prowl answer me!" Swearing, her voice. He worked to clear his processor though his frame was demanding recharge and refuel. "Cummon Prowl!" Fuel levels extremely low. Another blow, he was being... kicked? "PROWL! Say something!"

A command. "Sssometh-thing."

"Oh thank heavens. Oh Prowl, I thought I'd lost you. Stay with me buddy. I don't know anything about how you work and stuff, I mean, I don't even know if you can die or what, so I need you to tell me what to do."

It took him a while to think through her words but as he focused on the sound of her voice his processor began to clear again. "Badly damaged. Auto-repair systems.." The numbers wouldn't come to him, he focused hard and something blurred in and out of focus "65%? In-insufficient to complete nec-necessary repairs."

"Okay, so does that mean you are dying, like, right now?" She sounded half frantic and he wished distantly he could say something to comfort her but had no idea what such a thing would sound like.

"Negative. Probably. Don't seem... to be bleeding. Low.... low on fuel. Need repairs."

"So... tell me if I'm wrong, you are badly hurt, but you aren't going to die suddenly the moment I turn my back?"

What the pit? "What does your back have to do with my injuries?"

"Ugh! I mean... I mean... look do you need instant aid or can you wait a while for me to get it more easily, because all your buddies are gone and I could go yell like a maniac at the police to see if they could contact your friends, tell them I found you, but I'd rather not run the risk of going to jail and stuff."

"If... rest and fuel... can wait... get back to base on my own."

"Well you're a stubbornly independent one. I bet you can't even move though, you are pretty darn trashed Prowler."

"Prowl. My desig-designation is P-prowl."

She laughed. Her laugh was beautiful, really beautiful. Just as lovely as she was. Ha ha. Delirium warnings popped up on HUD. "But seriously can you move?"

Prowl shifted his wheels, turning them back and forth. They moved freely though if his nose had been crushed much further in they would have been compacted in place. He shifted slightly, feeling how they rolled slightly as he did. "I... I think so. My engine, I got... got it to start earlier. Hard."

"Okay, good. Try and start it now, we'll see if we can't get you at least to the cops so they can see you and then they can call your friends."

"No point."

"What do you mean? Oh don't you go suicidal on me. You are going to make it Prowl, just hold on."

"Hold on to what exactly?"

"URGH!" She was stomping on the ground. Frustrated, she was frustrated. He reviewed her words again and realized what the misunderstanding was.

"I mean, I may be able to move, but I cannot see. Can't see, can't drive."

"Well I can't push you all the way. Maybe I could... direct..." He couldn't see her, not really, not with most of his sensors out like this, but he could tell she was looking at him, staring at him, with such an intent look on her face. He tried to flare his sensors, try to get a better 'look' at her expression, inwardly cursing his ravaged sensor net.

"Um... Prowl..?" Her whole posture and tone of voice had changed, one small hand reaching out, slowly splaying against his side, just shy of his door. "Okay... so... like I said, I don't really know anything about you and yours so... I don't know..." She hesitated, her face overheating again and growing flustered then began speaking more rapidly again. "I mean, you guys are robots and cars and machines, and yet you seem sorta like people too so I don't know if this is weird or not, and I mean it is kinda weird if I'm trying to think of you as a person, but not weird if I think of you as a car, and I mean, you did have me insi-" She seemed to choke on the word, the temperature of her face rocketing even higher. This was alarming really, was something wrong with her? "gave me a ride. You gave me a ride." and then she fell silent.

Prowl waited a while, but she seemed too nervous too... embarrassed, yes embarrassed. A bit of data showed up suddenly in his processor. Blushing: a human way to show deep embarrassment, increase of blood flow to dermal layer of face causing reddening and heating of the skin.

Deep embarrassment? He felt a flicker of amusement despite his physical suffering. What exactly was it about this that was making her so embarrassed? And why, why did it feel so... complimentary that she was embarrassed because of _him_? Delirium warnings indeed. Except he felt like his processor was working better than it had since she'd first found him, as if her gentle touches were helping guide him out of the fuzzy darkness, her voice a lifeline to draw him back into the land of the cognizant.

Wow... he usually didn't think so metaphorically. He replayed her words, trying to figure out what she had been trying to get at, what had embarrassed her so. It was kind of hard to think though with her fingers tracing shapes on his side. "Yes... I gave you a ride... I take it you are trying to ask if it is... taboo for you to be inside my vehicle mode?"

Again the blush, and she half flinched away, directing her gaze elsewhere. "Um, yeah, something like that."

"It is not."

"It's just weird to think of getting inside something that is a person."

"Perhaps to your culture. The larger of my species will often give rides to those who are smaller when necessary or convenient. Probably your kind does similar things, only carrying the smaller in your arms?"

That seemed to relax her. "Yeah, we do that sort of thing. So, um... maybe I could... get in and sorta direct you? Be your eyes?"

"I am not sure that would work very well..." Humans were very imprecise and just the thought of trying to interpret spoken directions, and he'd have to go so very slow or risk hitting something, or someone, or wandering off the road.

"Well what if I... um... drive?" And pit if there wasn't a tiny hint of teasing in her voice, a strange lowness to her voice that he had no name for but reminded him far too much of Jazz trying to pull something over on him. And it made a strange tremor go through him, making the many many injuries twinge and twang, a new wave of error messages and damage warnings swamping his-

No. No he was not going there. "No."

"Oh? Would you rather I get a tow?"

"No."

"And you are a real car right?" She asked carefully, a hint of something in her voice.

"I am an Autobot." He said carefully, unsure where she was going with this.

"Well it's getting dark. And your friends are all away. Are you sure you don't want a tow?"

"No." He let out a faint growl. "I'll just wait here. Some rest and I will be fine."

"Well... you are sounding more like your normal self."

"My auto-repair systems have made progress on my processor." It was wholly irrational to believe that she, her voice, her presence, had played an actual part in it. He was still practically blind, and his audials were ringing constantly, but his condition was stable, he didn't seem to be leaking anymore. All he had to do was rest and wait until the others found him. They may have had to retreat earlier to rest after not finding him before, but they would find him. And he would not have to be towed like some human drone vehicle or have her drive him.

"That means you are thinking clearer?"

"Yes." He spoke her name carefully, it really was a lovely one.

"Yes Prowl?"

"Thank you... thank you for your help. As it's getting late... you should probably get going now. I will be fine. I am stable and the others will find me soon enough."

"Yes Prowl, alright." Something about the way she said it so blithely set off alarms in his processor. Abruptly he found his driver's side door opening.

"Wh-what?" Automatically he tried to shut the door but the treatment that left his doorwings mostly numb also left them mostly unresponsive.

He heard her laugh at his feeble efforts, small hands keeping a grip on the captured door. "Wow that feels funny."

"How... how dare you! Unhand me! What? Get out. No! You are not driving me!" But damaged and numbed as he was there wasn't a whole lot he could do. He could only feel vague impressions of her now, most of the sensors that monitored his vehicle mode's interior located in his numbed doorwings. And the infuriating female was _laughing_  at him.

His door closed with a sudden click, mechanisms locking in place. "Calm down. I'm a good driver, I won't get you more beat up." She said reassuringly. Were her hands on his wheel? He couldn't tell. He rocked slightly on his wheels. At least she couldn't actually force him to drive or anything. Human vehicles needed keys, all he had to do was not start his engine and he'd be fine.

"Out."

"No."

"Get out... please."

"Nope, but nice of you to be so polite." She was laughing at him. Infuriating, utterly infuriating. Then she grew serious, shifting her weight as she seemed to lean forward. "Look, I don't know how much longer the cement above you is going to hold, it's starting to creak and shift. Even if it wasn't we need to get you to your friends. Again, I don't know a lot about how you work and stuff but I can't help but feel that the sooner we get you to them the better." She hesitated and he felt a faint sensation of something ghosting along some part of his interior. Or perhaps it was just imagined, the information coming in from his sensors was becoming increasingly unreliable as his systems shunted power away from them, auto-repair taking priority in the absence of useful information coming in. In other words he was becoming more numb. "I know you clammed up when I mentioned driving but... Prowl I'm worried about you. You saved me... let me help you? Even if it's just to get you some place safe to rest until your friends can come get you?" Then her voice lightened slightly, a bit of a tease to it. "Let _me_  give you a ride home this time?" And a sharp tingle went through him at the words.

Prowl was quiet for a long while, feeling tiredness creeping in with the increasing numbness. What exactly had he done to deserve this? Was it a gift from Primus or Unicron? On one hand, he now had the opportunity to live some of those silly dreams he'd had, though a twisted very painful version. On the other hand no no no no no no no no!

"We don't have to do this Prowl." She said, sounding concerned, embarrassed. "I just... I'm worried. And it's going to get dark soon and there is no way your headlights still work. I mean, I am fine driving you wherever, I can get a taxi or something to get home after, to the police, to my home, to your base, wherever, just if we don't start _soon_ it might get dark before we can go all the way."

If this was a gift from Primus surely He would _at least_ have arranged things so Prowl would be able to properly enjoy it, be able to feel his little human he had far too many feelings for. Pit he hurt so much, the numbness was almost a relief, even if he was right in remembering that it was a sign of shock.

"Prowl, I know- I can tell you are uncomfortable with the idea of me driving you."

"You have no idea." He said flatly, though he could feel the faint edge of grim humor to his voice.

He could feel her wince. "Um... yeah... but this is rather extenuating circumstances so even if it is... taboo, maybe just put up with it this once?"

It still felt wrong, vastly inappropriate, almost obscene. He wondered if it was because it was _her_. If it had been someone else in that seat would he be alright with it? Would he be okay being puppet-ed about by.. by... one of these little tiny organic creatures who were all so young and fragile and fallible? Other Autobots had allowed it a couple times, but it was far far _far_  from normal.

There was a sharp thunk and his sensor net flared abruptly as new pain came in from his roof. "What was that?"

"Yeah, remember how I said that I was worried that the cement above you wouldn't hold? I think we need to move, _now_."

His human was in danger. His engine harshed and grumbled as he tried to start it once, twice, thrice. Something else fell, striking his crumpled hood, drawing out a cry of agony, the pain nearly driving him offline. But his human was _in danger_ and he lurched forward blindly, hearing things crashing behind him. There was pain, and his human cried out, and reverberations of her thumping around inside and he couldn't _tell how far he had gone_ without his sensors working or visual feed giving anything other than senseless static. His brakes clamped down suddenly, jerking him to a stop and he froze, hardly questioning what had made him choose to stop then. His human, he couldn't scan her with his sensors so compromised. He called her name, flaring his sensors, desperately trying to sort out the confused garble to determine if his human was alright.

"I'm okay Prowl, I'm okay. We got out in time, just in time." She sounded slightly out of breath but at her words he did calm, flared plating settling as new damage warnings popped up in protest of the movements.

"I'm sorry." He said softly, feeling a cold misery deep inside him. "I... I never meant to endanger you."

She laughed. "Oh, I knew it looked like it might come down when I got in. It's my own fault. Besides, it worked didn't it? Now you are on the street at least, none of the buildings can collapse on you here."

Why did her laugh have to be so beautiful? He should have been mad, should have scolded her, but all he felt was relief that she was alright. Still he had to try right? "You are terrible." He told her exasperated.

She laughed again. "So I have been told. But it paid off. Will you stop being so stubborn and let me drive you home now?"

"Fine. I don't think I have enough power to get back to base."

"How about my house? I've got a garage you can hole up in until your friends come?"

He did know where that was. "What happened to talking to the police?"

"I'll call them when I get home. I want to get you someplace safe. I..." She trailed off and he could faintly feel her hands moving around on his steering wheel.

"Why do you care so much?" He asked helplessly. It... it didn't make sense.

"Well... after all this it's pretty obvious that you aren't just a machine, no machine could act the way you do. So you are a person. And you saved me before. And..." She paused again. "I don't know... I mean... I couldn't help but notice that you've been sorta stalking me."

Oh, right. Embarrassment flushed through him. "Sorry about that."

"No, it's okay. I mean, I thought it was kinda sweet."

"Really? But... isn't it, illegal?"

"Well yeah but... it's not like you were gonna do anything to hurt me and... Well I'd like to think that I'm the sort of person who would help anyone who needed it. Even if they are a giant fighting alien robot that goes around pretending to be a police car." She teased.

So it wasn't something special about him. Or was it? Or she would help anyone but was particularly persistent because he had been illegally stalking her? "That is highly illogical. My breaking the law should have made you _less_  inclined to help not more."

She laughed again. "Well like I said, it was sweet. It was like having a secret admirer." Oh she had _no_  idea how close she was to the truth. Shame flowed through him. This just wasn't right, not right at all. She was so sweet and innocent and he had.. _feelings_  for her. "Okay, I'm going to take my foot off the break now okay?"

"What?" Oh, _that_ was why he had stopped when he had. "Well... you are going to be driving aren't you?" He asked cautiously.

"If you are sure. Though with you out in the middle of the road like this our only other option is a tow. I... I know I was pushy earlier but I don't _really_  want to do this without your consent."

Prowl felt the last shreds of resistance inside him unravel. Primus his human was perfect. Illogical, infuriating, and yes, pushy, but her spark... so bright, so kind, so gentle. It seemed his dreams were right, he could trust her. "I trust you." He said softly, letting go of control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this was fluffy enough for ya'll


	8. The Ashes of Praxus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is angrier during the war on Cybertron. Being on earth infected them with fluff. All that hope Prowl's been on about or something
> 
> This is also a story about why there are all those huge holes in the surface of Cybertron. It always seemed weird to me. Now it seems horribly tragic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recommend rereading at least the last five paragraphs of chapter 6 before you start this. The whole chapter would be better, but the last five will get you understanding Prowl's mentality enough to really feel this chapter, for it to make sense. The one that starts "Such a silly thought, as if there were anything left inside him to come undone", read starting there.
> 
> How did this end up being so long? Seriously?  
> This is an angst sad chapter, feel free to skip.

Jazz came online to unfamiliar surroundings. While this wasn't _overly_  unusual in his line of work, it was _never_ a good thing. Jazz sat up looking around the small ruined structure. Daylight filtered in through holes in roof and walls. No Decepticons. And he certainly wasn't trapped. He noticed a cluster of energon cubes and it came back. Jazz let out a brief chuckle. Seemed his hard work training Prowl hadn't been wasted after all. He hadn't even seen the blow coming, and Jazz _always_  saw things coming. His fingers explored the dent at the base of his helm and he noted how perfectly precise and measured the blow had been. Exactly on target, enough force without being the slightest bit excessive. Prowl might make a good assassin with speed and finesse like that. If the cold spark ever got sick of killing bots en masse with his brutal tactics. Making murder _personal_  was probably just not his style.

Bloody calculator.

Still, expertly done. Perfect lights-out blow, and on a target facing him too. Credit where credit was due. Jazz opened one of the energon cubes and downed it in a single gulp. He had gotten low. Just like the calculator to bring extra provisions. Jazz hadn't had time to stock up, knowing he would have a hard time catching up to the praxian. The mech had been an enforcer, he had speed _and_  endurance. Sure Jazz could outpace him short distance, but if it became a distance match Jazz would have a hard time catching up. Besides, he'd been planning on just rushing after the mech and dragging him back, and had been counting on the fact that the tactician had a desk job to take his edge off. Clearly it hadn't.

It had taken _five joors_ of pushing to catch up and Jazz was fitter than a frontliner with his work. Yes, he excelled at sprints, but he had to escape on his own enough times he could do distance as well. He had seriously left the base only a couple breems after Prowl and he hadn't even _spotted_ the tactician when he'd run out of his sprint power. Pit that mech was fast, setting a brutal pace Jazz could hardly keep up with much less overtake.

He still didn't know why he hadn't just dragged the mech back to base. Though it retrospect it probably wouldn't have worked any better than his attempt to force him to rest last night. Jazz downed a third cube thinking back with a frown. Prowl was acting... strange. He'd been watching over the mech for decavorns now. He didn't _get_ emotional. Ever. And yet... something was off. His field had been pulled close and as flat as ever but... There had been a strange tension in frame and voice. Similar to when he would bawl out subordinates who refused orders or were unruly. Similar and yet _completely different_ too. And there had been such a deep undercurrent of urgency to every motion. Jazz had followed him, waiting for him to wear out and stop for the night but the mech was _unflagging_. How he managed it Jazz would never know, he was a bleedin' desk jockey for pity's sake. And yet he'd been running at a pace _Jazz_  could barely maintain, for more than half an orn. _Half an orn._

And then, to top it all off, Prowl had attacked him. Knocked him out in a single blow. Jazz subspaced the last two cubes and strode out of the building, mouth set in a firm line as he transformed. Prowl was dangerous. It seemed the fall of Praxus had destabilized him mentally. And the Prime had set Jazz to watch the tactician, watch over protect, but also to keep an optic on, and to end him if it became necessary. It would be better if he did not have to. The tactician was still useful to the Autobot cause. Better to incapacitate and retrieve. But if it came to it Jazz had his orders, and he would not be the only one glad to see the death bringer as a greyed out husk.

And yet... what if it was an _emotional_  upheaval? Prowl didn't use words with emotional overtones if he could possibly avoid it. And yet he had called Praxus his _home_. And when he'd said it... Well, if there was anything that could break through an emotionless mask it was the destruction of home and all of one's people.

Jazz remembered the time he had come back from a mission barely alive. He'd dragged himself home after a serious beat down but had managed to maintain his cover and get the all important intelligence back to base in time. His physical injuries had not been too difficult to repair and healed quickly allowing him to be discharged from the medbay in only a couple orns. But the real damage had been to his spark, the knowledge of what he had done, the screams that still rang in his audials and the images seared into his processor so deep he could barely see what was in front of him. He'd retreated to his room, sealing himself off from the rest of the world as he always did when he was most dangerous, most hurt. There was an energon dispenser in his quarters for a reason, and he could hole out in there for decaorns without any contact with the outside world.

Riddled with guilt he'd intended never to leave again, having decided that once and for all he had gone too far, that nothing was worth what he had paid, that no one who'd done the things he'd done deserved to be called an Autobot, let alone live. He'd come back from missions broken before, but never this bad, but then again, he'd never had to offline a fellow Autobot to maintain his cover either. Time lost it's meaning and recharge was elusive, impossible to capture intentionally and brief and plagued with horrible, painful nightmares when it caught him instead. He'd begun to starve himself, glad in a sick way that no one dared to approach him when he was like this, they wouldn't find out until it was too late and Cybertron was free of the evil that was special ops agent Jazz.

He remembered being sprawled on the couch, staring at the ceiling feeling slightly giddy at the feel of being so low on fuel, when the door to his quarters had opened suddenly. And there was Prowl, optics narrowed, wings tilted upward and quivering in that subtly disapproving way of his. Jazz had gotten up, angry, yelling for him to get out, threatening as he felt his still over sensitive battle protocols flaring up, and Prowl had ignored him. While Jazz had been full of sputtering rage and guilt and half charged the tactician, Prowl had remained his usual icy calm, taking Jazz down and pinning him face down on the floor with almost no effort and an order to 'get over his lousy self, pull himself back together, and get back to work'. And Jazz had snarled, had screamed and struggled, and finally begun to cry, the words, the horrible words tumbling out of his vocalizer as he was unable to hold them back. All the guilt and anger and hate and frustration and grief pouring out in an ugly tide until Prowl had heard enough and slammed his helm into the ground to get him to shut up.

And then he'd begun to talk, explaining in that cold, disapproving voice, all the lives that had been saved with the information Jazz had brought back. And it went on and on and on; names, numbers, probabilities, facts, results, reminders that Stormhandle (Prowl had actually known the mech's name though Jazz hadn't put it in his report, that had been a shock) had known what he was getting into when he signed onto the army. That he never would have been allowed to leave the Decepticon base alive even if Jazz hadn't offlined him. That Stormhandle would have sacrificed his life for those the information had saved, indeed he had only been captured _because_  he had sacrificed himself to ensure the rest of his squad a clean get away. On and on and on, an endless stream of logic and information, until Jazz's overwrought processor and wrung out spark had gone hazy and lax and he fell into a deep and dreamless recharge.

When he'd woken he'd found himself on his berth with four filled cubes on the table next to it with a note from Prowl. "Drink these and report for duty." Followed by a list of shifts he was to cover, all light duty but something every orn for quite a while. And he'd gone back to duty, losing himself in work and fortified by Prowl's words and stupid numbers, as much as he hated to admit it even to himself. He hadn't healed immediately, wounds like that never did, but among those that knew nothing of the mission details (which was everyone but Prowl, Jazz's own CO, and Optimus) he heard the comments about how quickly he had come back to duty, musings that the mission must have gone really well for him to bounce back so much faster than usual. There hadn't been time for anyone to worry. None of the others had realized that something was wrong (well more wrong than usual). None but Prowl.

And there had been other times too, times when Prowl had said or done things that proved he wasn't as completely ignorant of emotions as he seemed (though it was certainly impossible to be MORE ignorant of them than he seemed).

So which was he? The sparkless machine that ran the war, grinding up Autobots and Decepticons and neutrals in his quest for victory? Or a mech who ran the war, grinding up Autobots and Decepticons and neutrals alike in his quest for victory, but who felt _really bad_  about it.

But that was unfair too wasn't it. Jazz let out a growl wishing he could be more like Prowl and just evaluate things for a few seconds without his emotions tangling everything up into a big angry mess.

It was easier to believe that Prowl was just playing him, using his advanced tactical genius to manipulate circumstances and act the necessary part to ensure that Jazz and the others continued to function in the way most beneficial to the cause. It was easier to believe that there wasn't a _person_ in there sending so many good mechanisms to their deaths, that it was just a machine that stared out those icy blue optics, something unfeeling and hateful to any right thinking Autobot. If that was the case you didn't have to feel bad about hating him, you could direct all your grief and anger and frustration over the deaths of friends and loved ones at the SiC without having to feel a shred of remorse for doing so. But if it _was_  a person in there, desperately giving his all to protect them, running himself into exhaustion in an effort to raise success and survival probabilities by even a single percent, then it wasn't just _wrong_  to hate him in return, it was just about _criminal_.

Jazz snarled his engine, hating to think about these things. Too philosophical, he preferred action, be it fighting or playing, or outsmarting a rival, or pulling off the perfect plan without a hitch. He preferred to follow his instincts, those strut deep feelings that kept him alive and just a step ahead of disaster when the going got rough.

So in that case this was a good thing. He'd catch up to Prowl and see exactly what he did, how he reacted to the destroyed Praxus, and then he'd figure out the color of the praxian's mettle once and for all.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------

 

Jazz had heard that Praxus had been destroyed. Jazz had seen the aftermath of cities destroyed by the Decepticons.

This was not what it looked like.

This was something else.

The sky was dark with ashes, slowly raining down on a flat, gouged, uneven sea of more ash. There was no trace of buildings, the thin layer already fallen too smooth, the surface plates the city had been built on were ravaged, a hole where the city had once been. Praxus had been a city of crystal and metal and rare stone. Now all that remained was a shallow uneven pit of ash. There was no indications of where buildings had been, there wasn't any of normal rubble or ruins that remained when a city was bombed out, there wasn't anything but ash, on the ground, in the sky, in the air.

No one could survive this. Mechanisms were more fragile than buildings and not even hints of foundations remained. Praxus wasn't destroyed, it was dead, razed to the ground, erased as if it had never been. A deep groan of tortured metal sounded from below him, as if Cybertron itself were grieving the loss of the city.

Prowl.

There was a purpose in being here. Jazz looked around, it was late, the praxian would have gotten here joors ago. Many joors ago. He needed to find the mech, see what he was up to. There was no point trying to help any rescue teams, there was nothing left to rescue. Whatever tracks there had been from the praxian were long buried under the slowly drifting ash. Jazz walked carefully, armor clamped tight to keep the ashes out. Beneath the ash the surface was uneven, rumpled and swirled, metal and stone and the ash that hadn't been thrown into the atmosphere fused into a lumpy but glassy surface by the incredible heat that had reduced Praxus to nothing more than ash. There were pock-holes where hot blasts had fallen, only the thick ash gave sufficient traction to keep from slipping even as it trickled in through the smallest gaps in his armor. So far the ash only came halfway up to his knees but with how dark the sky was it would eventually come up past his hips as it settled out of the atmosphere.

Primus. Jazz was no greenhorn newspark, he'd seen war, this war, for vorns beyond count, but nothing compared to the empty devastation he found here. Praxus meant nothing to him, he'd never actually seen it in person even, and the sheer magnitude of the destruction seemed to claw at his spark and steal the breath from his vents.

Primus, and this was where Prowl had been sparked. If there was anything feeling in the mech he'd be suffering now. He wondered if it would be enough to make the mech forego logic and try helping the pointless rescue efforts. A sort of desperate motion to try to make up for all those Autobots he'd sent to their deaths. Here, in this barren ashy wasteland, it was easy to imagine that any praxian would be half mad with grief. But it was still hard to imagine that hypothetical praxian being _Prowl_.

It was easier to imagine that nervous energy that had been driving the mech keeping him up and running still, overseeing rescue teams, taking command as he had been trained to, his computer churning out numbers and probabilities, doing all to ensure maximum efficiency of the rescue efforts. Voice and frame still superficially calm but amped up with that same nervous energy that had propelled him all this way at such an incredible speed. Sensor wings twitching, optics getting caught on things, a faint stutter to his voice, but still mostly focused, efficient. Yes. That seemed right. He could see Prowl doing that, especially after watching what might have been a very low, toned down, freak out last night. It fit with both his restrained personality and the strange behavior the mech had been exhibiting since he'd heard of the disaster, including his attack on Jazz last night.

So it was a bit of a surprise when Jazz came across the first rescue team and there wasn't a pair of wings among them. They hadn't seen or heard of any praxians, Prowl or otherwise. That was not a good sign. If he wasn't helping, if he hadn't taken command, there were other, far less savory things, the mech might be doing. But there were no greyed out frames or reports of missing rescuers so at least the missing tactician wasn't on a murderous rampage. At least not yet. Mental breaks could be terrible things, and the praxian had turned to violence even _before_ he'd witnessed the full magnitude of what had happened to his once home.

Jazz continued trekking across the ashy wasteland, alert for any and all movement as he had been when he'd spotted the first rescue team. The light ash fall was distracting but didn't interrupt visibility much. Even so he nearly missed the small huddled figure collapsed in the ash, the thin covering obscuring his paint job, so still he blended in with his miserable surroundings.

It was a praxian all right, though that was not immediately obvious as the distinctive sensor wings were angled so far downward they seemed to have nearly folded behind the mech's back, an angle far beyond what their design _should_  allow. Broken, or the metal of the joints warped at the very least.

A survivor or a mourner? There wasn't enough spilled energon for a survivor, unless they had managed to get clear of the city when the bombs first started somehow. Or whatever the Seekers had been dropping to do this. The frame was hunched over on hands and knees, pale blue optics staring down at the ash that surrounded him. How long had the mech been huddled there for that thin coating of ash to settle so? It was almost as thick on him as on the ground even with the faint tremors that occasionally went through his frame resettling the lighter bits of ash, some of it disappearing into the gaps and crevices of his plating. Those faint tremors and the glow of his optics were the only signs that he was still alive as Jazz drew closer.

Red chevron, and now Jazz could see the black and white on the chassis where it was blocked from the ash fall. Prowl. Except how could it be Prowl? How could he be here? Why come this far into Praxus and collapse? Why not closer to the center, where the important buildings were or much closer to the initial edge? It seemed so arbitrary and he was just there, on the ground, crumpled and not _doing_  anything, systems running so quietly with only the occasional stuttering of ash clogged vents. The idiot hadn't clamped his armor down against intrusion or even closed his vents near the ash covered ground, literally sucking in small swirls of ash with each invent. At least some of it was also exventing out, Jazz thought in a cool detached way, the special ops part that observed and analyzed even in the darkest situations.

This couldn't be Prowl. This didn't fit. The mech was quiet and all but sparkless but he was always _DOING_  things. But with his systems so quiet it was pretty clear that he wasn't even thinking anymore really, the tactical computer silent to Jazz's over sensitive audials.

It wasn't Prowl then, Prowl would never do that, he'd be thinking and scheming and planning and working and helping and saying stupid cold things, and _doing something_.

"This is where we were trained up." The mech said suddenly, the first and only indication that he was aware that another was nearby. And Pit and Primus, it was Prowl's cool voice, but not its usual monotone, now a tense ragged thing, as broken and helpless as his frame looked. "Our, our newspark home... right here..."

Jazz stared, the facts and expectations and mapped out scenarios running and chasing each other through his processor. This could not be Prowl. This was not Prowl, not his nature, not his way, could not be his frame. This most certainly _was_ Prowl. His frame, his voice, his paint job. Prowl was somewhere in the ash pit that had once been Praxus. This frame matched Prowl's physical traits. Therefore this must be Prowl. This _could not be_  Prowl. This was _not_  the way Prowl behaved. This was not in _any way_  Prowl. This was Prowl. This was Prowl's frame. This was not Prowl, but it was his frame.

Conclusion(?): The one called Prowl was broken.

"38,582,683."

"What?" Jazz's processor was still spinning and re-calibrating. He was dang lucky for his training or he would be suffering some sort of epic level logic crash from all the conflicting data and processing threads all warring inside his helm right now.

"38,582,683." Prowl repeated staring down at the ash that swirled weakly around his hands, disturbed by his vents. "That was the number of mechanisms living in Praxus at the last census two quartexes ago." There was a pause. "When... when I saw..." The mech's voice seemed to be choking up but this was _Prowl_ , he didn't _get_ choked up. Fingers, buried in the ash rippled, extended, curled, went still again. "Calculations." The tactician said suddenly. "41.304% probability of a single survivor. 20.128% for two. 1.549% for three. 5.203% for four because the increased likelihood of coordination for survival. The rest... it's all less than 0.004% and drops precipitously." The praxian said as if giving a report to the ash he was staring at, voice a semblance of his usual blank monotone, but there was still an edge to it.

Jazz simply stared. The words, the voice, the posture, the fact that this was Prowl. None of it was lining up in his processor, only adding to the chaos. Reason was shaking its head over the mess of conflicting signals while his emotions seemed to have run into some deep corner of his spark and refused to be coaxed back out.

Prowl looked up, facing Jazz but optics not quite focusing on him, just slightly to the side, and focused far too distant, squinting a bit as if he was having difficulty seeing the other. Primus. It wasn't that dark, and the ash fall was too light to impact visibility much yet. Concussion or shock, and it didn't look the the mech had been in a fight. But the tactician was speaking again, and Jazz forced himself to listen.

"My brother, Bluestreak, he... he was an engineer. All he ever dreamed of, all he ever wanted to be. Always... he was always talking about the city, the architecture, the layout, the plates beneath. He knew it all." A faint smile formed on the usually blank face, and the sensor wings twitched weakly, but there was so much pain there it hurt _Jazz_  to look at and part of his _job description_  was torturer. "It was his city, our city. He was to build it, I to protect it. He knew every last detail, every street, every strut, every window, every load bearing plate of the surface, how deep it had been dug into, distributions of weight, the tolerances of each and every one." The tactician stopped, optics going dull with grief. "He... he really loved our city."

Hesitantly Jazz reached out. He was so out of his depth. If this had been anyone else he would have already been wrapped around them crooning soft comforting words, but this was _Prowl_. Unfeeling, uncaring Prowl who sent mechanisms off to their deaths by the thousands. Jazz hadn't realized how deeply he had hated the bot, how absolutely certain he was the other didn't have a speck of good in him, how fundamental his belief of Prowl as sparkless was to his world view, until this moment. It felt like gravity had decided to switch direction and only bare luck was holding him to the surface of Cybertron. It felt like if music suddenly lost its beauty, or the sun its light, or Optimus his hope. It felt so completely and utterly wrong, to see the sparkless drone of a tactician broken sparked, sensor wings drooped down so far they looked broken, optics empty and hollow, utterly ravaged by the sort of grief that was too big, too deep, for an outsider to comprehend.

Jazz was suddenly aware of the sound of his own name and realized that the praxian (something that would be far far rarer now) had been speaking again. "Can you do it for me Jazz? Please?" The tactician was holding out a datapad toward him, optics pleading, desperate and devastated.

Jazz took the datapad mechanically, his processor still reeling from the shock of his discovery, from what he was witnessing. It was just a temporary weakness, from having so many facts and data and priority trees being rewritten, normal after having some fundamental truth of a mech's understanding of the world change suddenly, as this apparently was for him. He stared at the datapad blankly. "What do you want me to do with this?"

"My br-brother was an.. an engineer. He knew, I know, the places most likely for anyone to have survived the attack. I have... have listed them there. You must... I can't get up... legs... won't respond... you must take this to the rescue teams. If there is anyone alive they will need immediate medical attention. These locations, deep basements, bunkers, probably all destroyed... the..." Prowl's gaze wandered, going all around as he simply stopped speaking, distracted by something Jazz couldn't even guess at. Then the praxian shuddered and started talking again. "These are the most likely locations to find any survivors of this. But you must hurry. Praxus, never overly stable. The plates... soon it will all collapse back into the depths of Cybertron. Any survivors.. have to be found soon, and rescue crews will have to eva-evacuate before collapse or.. or they'll... they'll..." A slightly muffled, broken sound escaped Prowl's vocalizer and Jazz put a hand on his shoulder. Prowl blinked and turned his helm upward as Jazz half crouched over him.

"I will do it. Just... just stay here and I'll take care of it. Can you do that?"

"Details... collapse... the probable timelines for the different plates... all in the datapad... my brother... he really... he really loved..." The optics dropped back down to the ground, to the ash swirling on the ground around his lower vents. "He really loved our city." The mech whispered, frame shuddering with either a sob or choking on the ashes.

"Prowl, I need you to close your lower vents so the ash won't clog em up so bad okay? I'm gonna be right back 'kay?"

"He's dead now... it's all ashes now... thirty-eight million, five hundred eighty-two thousand"

Jazz sighed, he wasn't sure if the Praxian had even heard him but if what Prowl had said was true, the information on this datapad was vital. He hurried away, spark aching, looking for the relief crew he'd spotted earlier. As he moved he powered up the datapad and reviewed the information. It did look like what Prowl had been talking about. It was simple and direct, with a perfectly set out map with coordinates and instructions for the locations of interest, and a crapload of data cleanly mapped out below the simple part as some pretty serious proof the praxian knew what he was talking about. Numbers and weird slag that looked like science, maybe even engineering stuff. Who knew the mech had it in him?

But hey, that was the theme of the orn wasn't it? Prowl, the mech of a hundred surprises. Now Jazz just had to make sure the bot didn't offline out of pure grief. This... it wouldn't take half this to send most sparks guttering out, but Prowl... well his feelings seemed different, or maybe they were the same, he had just always been better at hiding them (or maybe he had always just chosen to conceal them behind his professionalism, not wanting to add further chaos to the overly emotional climate of Autobot high command). At least it was getting easier for Jazz to think of Prowl as a real mech now, something that wasn't automatically a drone, someone who felt and hurt, just as much as anyone else.

Someone who had just lost family, home, and kin, all in a single orn to one horrible Decepticon attack.

Soon Jazz found the rescue team, sifting through ashes pointlessly and looking lost. It wasn't their home and the horror of the devastation was getting to them. It was the work of a moment to pick out their leader, grim faced and determined, and Jazz handed the datapad over to him, telling him that it was orders from Autobot high command. "They called in an expert, pass this information on to all the teams covering this disaster." Jazz said, his voice sharp and commanding. "Make sure all the marked locations are searched immediately and thoroughly by order of Optimus Prime himself and be certain that all the rescue teams are clear of the area before the plates start to collapse. We don't need to lose any _more_  mechs to this surfing the plates to the heart of Cybertron. Understand?"

"Yessir." The mech hesitated, scanning through the datapad. "This... this is really from Optimus Prime himself? That's... really fast. And.. it's really going to collapse?"

"It's all true StraightEdge." Jazz had zero qualms about lying that this was from Optimus. The Prime's name carried weight (far more than Prowl's) and he knew Optimus well enough to know the Prime would back him on this if it came down to it. This was rescue, this was important. He might scold Jazz privately for fudging but Jazz knew he had the Prime's respect. "I'll be checking up on you later to make sure these orders are followed _to the glyph_. What you do with the rest of the time you have before the plates go down I don't care, but get those locations searched immediately."

The Autobot soldier saluted. "Yes sir." He said, activating comms to pass on the information as he bellowed out orders to his unit. Soon they were rolling out to the nearest location while the other search parties were being coordinated to do the same.

Jazz watched them go, watched the dark ashes plume up behind them. Transforming in this slag would be a nightmare to clean out, but they seemed determined not to waste an astrosec now that they had some direction and some real hope of finding survivors out in the featureless wasteland of ash. He could hear the groaning of metal below his pedes, so much more ominous now that he knew that the ground really _was_  going to collapse out from under him given time. He had memorized the map of the plates with their probable drop times and suggested evacuation time stamps. The Decepticons hadn't just destroyed Praxus, they had unknowingly ensured that nothing would ever be built here again. A great tear would open up in the surface of Cybertron, an eternal gaping wound that would forever serve as a reminder of the savagery of the Decepticons.

And the agent in him was calculating out exactly what effect that was going to have on this awful war, and the other neutral cities especially.

Slag.

Jazz turned back, retracing his steps to get back to the tactician. Prowl hadn't moved since he'd left, thin layer of ash covering him now thicker as small explosive sobs reached the saboteur's audials. At least that meant the poor fool was still functioning. Jazz walked over and crouched down again, putting a gentle hand on the crying mech's shoulder. "I gave them the info Prowl. They are on the way to the locations. The survivors will be found thanks to you."

The tactician shuddered, closing his optics and letting out another plating rattling sob. This was no good at all, instead of his armor being clamped closed it was wide open at every juncture. His whole frame was going to be utterly full of ashes at this rate. "Cummon, lets get you up."

"They are all dead Jazz." The tactician whispered, staring down at the ash swirling around his bracers. The shock seemed to have gotten worse while the ops agent was away.

"Yeh I know, let's get you moving." Jazz gripped one ash smeared elbow and tried to drag the tactician to his feet. Slag, the mech might not actually be taller or wider than him but he was _heavy_  and it seemed every single joint was locked in place. It was like trying to lever up a statue.

"Thirty-eight million, five hundred eighty-two thousand-"

"Cummon Prowl, I need your help"

"-six hundred and eighty-three mechanisms at last census. Ch-ch-chance of a single survivor 41.304%. Chance of-"

Slaggit all, he was back to the numbers again. Maybe that was how he dealt with grief? He was a tactician, his whole function was numbers. Jazz wanted to say that was all the mech saw when he looked at the world but this... well it was obvious he _felt_ , and strong enough to push through his grief to at least collect and prepare the information needed to help any survivors there might be. The mech had been an enforcer right? Enforcers in particular were closely bound to their people, they carried deep code to protect and serve. Maybe now that he had done all he could to ensure the rescue of any survivors, the number of the dead was all he _could_  think about.

"My my my br-brother... he loved our city... 1.549% chance of three survivors... 5.203% for four because the increased likelihood of coordination for survival."

"Yeah Prowl, I know, you told me already." Jazz said soothingly and carefully took a seat in the ash. He had to figure out some way to get the praxian moving again, or at least his joints unlocked. Knocking him out right now was unlikely to do it, the mechanisms would have to be either consciously or manually unlocked, and unconsciousness at this point was likely to be fatal. He needed to calm the mech down a bit. Or at least give him something to hold on to so he wouldn't succumb to the shock.

"They are all dead Jazz." The same empty tone, voice without spark or expression. Field not the neutral of careful control but a blank emptiness of grief and loss.

"They might not be." That seemed to get a response. The lenses of the optics whirred slightly.

"Jazz... you... you caught up..?"

"Yah mech, I've been here for a while."

"Ah... yes... that's right..." The praxian blinked a couple times then fell back into the earlier report "Chance of a single survivor 41.304%, chance of a-"

"Yeah, I know, better than that because you sent the rescue teams off in the right direction."

There was a pause as if the tactician was considering, as his frame continued to shudder at random intervals. "I thought there... there would be something left..." Prowl said helplessly, shuddering with another quiet sob.

At least the mech was responding somewhat. That was a good sign even if his processor was struggling to escape those loops about the horrible numbers. "We all did Prowl. Nothing like this has ever happened before."

"I should have stopped it." The tactician whispered.

Jazz snorted. "You couldn't have. Prime wasn't able to, how could you have? Now get up, we need to get you clear of this." Dang the praxian looked so small now, huddled like some broken-down wreck, vents choked with the ashes of his people. Not that a special ops agent was an expert, but he was pretty sure that literally _breathing in your dead kin_ was bad for a mech's mental health.

"I should have found a way." Prowl said bitterly.

"How? They were warned. I know they were, you know they were."

"That... is logical..." Prowl whispered finally, crumpling in on himself. Now he was actually curled up in a ball, cheek vents submerged in the ash, choking and stuttering on the dead of his people.

"Slaggit all!" Jazz reached out, trying to force the praxian to uncurl or at least get some of his vents free of the ash. Prowl's fans were on now, kicking into life trying to cool his frame overheated by the simple means of being filled with ash instead of being cooled by the circulation of air. "Cummon, you gotta get your helm above the ash level at least." Jazz growled worried as the praxian began coughing and coughing, vents kicking some of the ash out at least as Jazz resorted to scooping the ash away from the clogged vents so more wouldn't get back in. Drowning in ash, that had to be a new one. Again the thought cropped up of the psychological trauma potential of choking to death on the ashes of home and family. Pit.

The choking was turning to sobbing again, the ash covered and filled frame was no long so hot to the touch, no longer in danger of meltdown. At least not pysical meltdown. Jazz managed to prop the stiff frame up on his knees, pulling the grieving mech into his arms as best he could. "Shhhh. It's okay." Just pretend it isn't Prowl you are doing this for.

Except... he found himself thinking back to the times when Prowl had held him after rough missions, and especially the time he'd nearly offlined himself, would have if Prowl hadn't intervened. Prowl had never done anything very emotional during those times, comforting words were rare and always spoken without emotion, he held no kindness of tone or expression. But he'd been there, and now, seeing Prowl like this, it was clear that he felt just as anyone did. Jazz had always interpreted his actions as just the well planned sequence stimulus Prowl's battle computer determined would best care for Jazz (and the occasional others the mech would help) to keep him fully functional, able to fulfill his duties.

But maybe that was how the mech showed he cared. Using his tactical computer to calculate the most efficient methods and mechanically going through them, trying to help and comfort despite his lack of emotional expression. And it _had_ been comforting, the careful precise touches at some times, caring words delivered in a cautious but bland monotone at others, the simple holding and ignoring, being there and requiring nothing of a wounded spark, or the stream of numbers and proofs and logic and strict commands when needed, all carefully calculated depending on the situation. The mech didn't emote well, even now, perhaps he used his battle computer for these things, for all things, because he cared, it being the most powerful tool available to him.

These thoughts were very weeeeiiirrrd, almost alien to Jazz's way of thinking. But the mech had uncurled slightly, helm pressed against Jazz's abdomen as Jazz gently stroked his crest making soothing noises as Prowl sobbed in short broken bursts, plating rattling with the force of it, ash leaking in and out and swirling around the two of them. But Prowl was holding on at least, his spark hadn't extinguished under the weight of his grief.

"It's... i's logical..." The mech was whimpering softly. "So... so why does it hurt.... so much..."

It was so quiet, so broken, Jazz wondered how long the tactician had been murmuring those words, so quiet compared to the sounds of him choking on the ash clogging vents and frame, plating rattling with the force of his grieved sobbing. "Because you care Prowl." Jazz said softly, cautiously, almost as if he feared a trap in the simple words. "Even if they didn't listen to the warnings, you still care about their lives.

"Can't care..." Prowl muttered, metal creaking as his sensor wings shifted slightly, trying to emote. The mech's joints were unlocking, his frame had begun to relax under Jazz's ministrations but now a stiffness was overtaking them again. And then it stopped, the Praxian's frame crumpling. "Have... have to.. to hava.... spark... to care..." he whispered. "It... it hurts... so much... where my spark used to be... the argument is logical... it shouldn't... shouldn't hurt... so much..." He struggled and squirmed, internals grinding and creaking, misaligned and clogged with ash, not really moving much.

Jazz felt his own spark break watching it. This pathetic battered frame, technically unharmed, but just about pulling itself it apart, already partially deactivated by the shock the praxian was going through, the broken words, so cold and despairing, illustrating the dark abyss the poor creature was trapped in.

At least with his joints unlocking, going limp, Jazz could rearrange him more easily, pulling Prowl up against his chestplates so all his main vents were now clear of the ash that covered the ground. The mech's helm lolled limply against Jazz's hood, still mumbling agonized words, awful things Jazz had heard said of the mech, things even he'd said himself, that now cut Jazz's spark to the very core. Jazz vented softly onto the top of the other's helm, blowing some of the fallen ash away, holding him close and rubbing gentle circles on the mech's back as Prowl had done for Jazz so many times before when his emotions had been too raw and wounded for him to function.

And Jazz had never thought to comfort the tactician in return, never considered how those cruel words spoken so carelessly by any and everyone, even Jazz himself, that appeared to so easily to roll off his back, had instead been lodging themselves deep in the quiet mech's processor and spark, tearing him apart, eating at him from the inside like acid until he believed it all. Just as Jazz had a mere orn ago.

'I need you to look after him.' The Prime had said. 'He has been through some hard things and he needs someone to introduce him to Autobot high command, prepare and acclimate him, and watch over him, make sure he doesn't break again. Make sure he doesn't end up hurting himself or our own.' Those had been Jazz's orders. And he had succeeded in many ways, helping forge the quiet local commander into something that could function as the tactical commander of the entire Autobot army. He had been strong and hard on the mech, not letting him get lost to depression or helplessness, though he could never demand as much of him as Prowl demanded of himself, working endlessly on the data and calculations that ran the war. But Jazz had never really looked after the mech hidden behind the professional mask and the frigid logical tactics, never even acknowledged his existence.

"'Course you have a spark Prowler." Jazz whispered, staring down at the white helm resting against his chestplates, spark aching with guilt, remembering every cold cruel word he'd ever spoken to the little tactician.

Prowl shook his helm weakly. Jazz could practically feel his spark flickering as he heard the tactician's systems stall for a few moments and pick up again. The dull light of his optics brightened a bit. "Lies." He whispered, one limp hand starting to curl into a fist then going lax again.

"Ya wouldn't be here and functioning if ya didn't have a spark." Jazz insisted, worried, he was losing the mech, no surprise there, this was too big and terrible for most to survive. But there had been a flicker of anger, should he push that? If he got the mech angry enough it might help his spark hold on.

Sheesh what a hypocrite he was, hating Prowl all those years for doing whatever he calculated would be most effective in interacting with others and here Jazz was doing the same, calculating what would work best to keep the mech functioning, worrying for the advantage they would lose in the war if the Autobots lost Prowl's tactical computer as the special ops in him calculated and plotted as if Prowl were just another problems to solve. Prowl was his mission. Keep him alive for his function, the purpose he served in the army not the mech he was.

"Drones function." Prowl said dully. "A spark is not necessary." He offlined his optics. "They all say it, even you. I've heard. Don't... don't think your pretty words now that you fear fear fear you'll lose the Prime's pre-pre-precious computer will make me forget the previous assertions." He said with a bit of bitterness to his dull tone. Bitterness, that was good. Horrible yes, but a hope of something holding on.

"We were wrong." Jazz said and Prowl let out a weak snort of disgust. Jazz could pick out the hum of his tactical computer, weak but still there. That explained the increased coherence. He was probably even running his tactical programming just to compensate for all the shock had shut down.

"Save your idle words. I will not cease to function. I... I will remain... do not worry... your Prime will not lose his precious tactical computer." The tactician whispered bitterly. "Do not waste your words trying to comfort a spark that went dark long ago."

"If that is all true why are you still here cuddled in my arms?" Jazz asked bluntly

The praxian was silent for a long while. Still and motionless as the battle computer whirred, calculating, assessing. But Jazz couldn't resist a smirk, confident that his argument would stand. "Frames will automatically seek out the comfort of others on an instinctive level." The tactician said cautiously, there was still pain and grief in his field but at least he was computing. And seriously emoting more than Jazz had ever seen in all the many decavorns he'd been watching over the mech.

Emoting was good, emoting was life in the depths of shock. Perhaps the shock of what he was going through had crashed the programs that normally concealed his emotions, that maintained that perfectly professional mask he always wore. "Only sparked frames display that behavior. Drones don't." Jazz said gently, stroking dark fingers along the crest of the tactician's helm, sparking a shudder through the praxian's frame. "You aren't a drone Prowl."

"That is logical." The tactician admitted finally, and his repressed field and stiff frame went lax. Ironic that it was logic that would lend him to believe in his own emotional existence.

But now the last of the barriers seemed to have collapsed and the depth of the grief and loss pouring of the mech, swamping his field, was overwhelming. Jazz tried to pulse back comfort and compassion, but it was a struggle not to be drowned himself in the other's overpowering grief. "I am sorry." He said softly. It didn't come close to fixing things, but it was all he could think of at the moment.

"They made me this way Jazz." The praxian whispered dully, what systems remained online cycling down from exhaustion and the shock. "They wanted to create a perfect officer for their enforcers. Someone who would remain calm and collected in any situation. Who could predict any situation and rapidly adapt to changing circumstances, infer as much as possible from limited data, who could approach any event with any amount of background and still make the best decisions tactically, could impartially calculate the best response to any situation they might encounter, setting aside any personal considerations that might interfere. They ran tests, so many tests, tweaked and modified, altered and refined, until I became what they had dreamed of. But in the end they feared me, feared what they had made me. My purpose, my function, hard coded into every last protocol, priority, and directive, was to protect our city. Bluestreak to build it, me to protect it. And they sent me away. They would not allow me to fulfill my function. I... I... they offered to reprogram me, retrain me for other work, but I could not bear it. All... all I ever wanted was to protect our city... Him to build, I to protect... all... all I ever wanted... to protect... to keep everyone safe... but they would not let me... so I sought work elsewhere hoping... hoping that one day... if I did enough, if I was good enough... they would let me come back and do the work I was built for." He paused for a while, venting heavily, exhausted frame trembling, too tired, too clogged with ash to sob any more. "All I ever wanted... and... it is all gone... I... I couldn't protect our city. Now it's... Gone... forever... I'll never... never... forever." He let out a faint sob, frame shuddering one last time as it shut down.

Jazz listened intently, but the mech was exhausted, whatever energy had launched him so far at such a rapid pace, had kept him coherent enough to create and deliver the rescue instructions, was spent now, and the strain of all he had gone through was taking its toll. But the sound was not of systems cycling down for the last time, but toward recharge. It wasn't going to be immediately fatal and with his joints unlocked it would be simple enough to transport him (especially if Jazz commed some of the rescue vehicles to come by for pickup). He just had to make sure the mech's spark didn't gutter out between now and when he next awoke. "I'll take care of you Prowl. I know it hurts, but you are still needed. There are still those here who need your protection." Jazz said softly, more to himself than anything because the mech in his arms had drifted into a light recharge.

Or so he thought until a while later Prowl spoke again, the sounds barely escaping the under-powered vocalizer. "I wonder... if part of this... his ashes... a part of him... inside me... who is lost to me... forever..." Prowl murmured and dropped into the deep recharge known only to the youngest and naivest of sparks, and those who have pushed their frames and sparks much _much_  too far.

The ash fall was much heavier now, reducing visibility to no more than a mechamile. Nothing moved out there, except the falling ash, black and dark grey, slowly filling the pit that was once Praxus. Below them the thick slabs of metal that made up the surface of their world groaned, their underlying struts and supports mourning the fall of their city, and their own final collapse soon to come. Jazz had never felt so alone, so isolated, overwhelmed by the utter and complete destruction that surrounded him. There was no one within sight or hearing, if he called no one would answer. He was alone in an endless dead wasteland except the praxian who now seemed so small, so fragile, his vents choked with the ashes of his people.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------

 

Something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong. His mind was waking, his internal computers booting up, but the wrongness was already eating at him. Visuals nill, audio faint, sensors.. where were his sensors? Just a faint thing, just a raw spark robbed of frame, hardly anything coming in from his sensors. Was he really there? Where was he? Where was the rest of the world? Focus. Troubleshooting. Helm, neck, chestplates, arms, hands, sensor wings.... sensor wings... There was a flux in his sensor net, he realized his frame was starting to convulse, sensations coming in from impacts against whatever it was he was lying on. But still no sensor wings. The hole in his sensor net, already so weak and low, tore at him, a hole in the web supporting his spark, he was falling, falling into the void. Praxian sensor wings were not just for show, more than a third, almost half, of a praxian's sensors were spread along the appendages and praxians were designed, through and through, hard coded, to use and assimilate all that incredible quantity of data. Without it, even just the psychological effect of the _idea_ of the loss of that integral part of their frame, was enough to unravel even the strongest of praxian processors, and that was _with_  the rest of the sensor net fully active.

He could hear someone calling his designation and feel his hands and arms striking metal below him. His processor was running overtime, metal... metal in the right location. Sensor wings! They were still there! mostly numb hands, fingers, scrabbled at the metal, clumsily exploring at the surface. Calculations running running running. Still attached, thank Primus, still attached. Someone yelling trying to get his attention, shaking him a bit. No input. No medic was foolish enough to fully numb a praxian's sensor wings, not while the rest of the sensor net was partially down, and the wings did not seem damaged. Why no response? He needed them! Falling into the void, sinking into an endless darkness. A spark spilling out of its frame. Ruthlessly he dug his fingers into a seam in the smooth metal and began jerking at it, brutally yanking the plating free.

Pain! Horrible agonizing fantastic pain! A thin stream of data coming in from his right sensor wing, screaming damage and attack warnings. Battle protocols tried to initiate to face the cause of such incredible pain but the effort was weak for reasons he couldn't bother to contemplate yet. He continued to dig at the metal, prying up the plating that shielded the delicate sensors, relishing the return of feeling to the appendage, weak stream of data reassuring him of its presence.

Hands clamped over his, yanking them away from his systematic destruction his sensor wing, but it was enough for now, some of the other sensors in the appendage coming back online, the thin strings of data curling around him, supporting him, feeding him the data that he needed to know he did in fact exist. Someone was yelling at him. "Jazz?" His voice sounded thick and tinny in his ringing audials but now he could focus better, the clawing madness abating for now.

The swearing eased and then stopped and he could faintly sense the other mech, probably Jazz, it sounded like him at least, hovering over him. The data coming in wasn't much but it was enough, insulating him from the endless void that had threatened to swallow spark and processor. Why was he thinking about his spark? He didn't do that much, what with it being gone. Memory files queued and a deep aching feeling of loss weighed him down. "Prowl? Can you hear me?" He felt a faint sensation, something brushing against his chevron. He flared the few sensors online in his partly mangled wing confirming that the form was... well, shaped like a mech. The data was still too sparse to do much more than that.

"Jazz... wh-what... happened?" So... exhausted. Wrung out. His code, deep code modified, priorities, loss, new accepted truths. An endless pit of ash, ash falling from the sky. "Pr-Praxus." He groaned, the memories hitting hard. He choked, feeling the ghost sensation of the ashes of his frame-kin and his beloved city clogging vents, sneaking in through every gap and crevice in his armor to lodge in every moving part, coating circuits and wires, making bits spark and crackle and grind. All that was left of his home. He groaned, distantly feeling his half numb frame writhe in pain. He thought he could hear Jazz's voice but in that deep grief he couldn't care to parse the sounds into words. His frame was shaking, sobbing? He couldn't quite tell, even as his processor pulled up a file. Shock. After a loss like this, deep enough shock and the processor and frame began shutting down, systems and processing thread and programs crashing until it failed completely and permanent deactivation set in. How much more grief and shock was there than what he had suffered? Regarding it clinically he should be dead. Many, many good strong mechanisms had offlined for good after less. Why was he still holding on?

And then he was aware of it, the gentle pulsing of another EM field against him, calm, nervous, comforting. "It's okay Prowler. It's okay... I've got you." Jazz's voice was soothing too, hands gripping his own, stimulating the sensors there. He was still blind, mostly deaf, and most of his frame numb to the point of being insensible, most of his sensors shut down by the shock of his loss, but Jazz was there, anchoring him and faintly outlined by the spacial environmental sensors that had been activated by his attack on his sensor wing. For a while Prowl just let himself rest in the meager sensations, in the warmth of Jazz's field that seemed to be trying to envelope him and felt... felt so familiar it must have been doing so for quite some time. That was why he was still online. Jazz. His spark. Prowl's spark, Jazz's spark. Jazz pressing his field into his unconscious frame, comforting his grieving spark, helping it to hold on beneath the crushing weight of all he had lost.

Primus, it was going to take forever to fully process this. Praxus, ash, the surface plates groaning, going to all collapse. Maybe already had. How long had he been unconscious? Bluestreak, his brother, the others, WhiteLine, Silverstreak, SnapFlash, SunBright, WheelGrind. There were others too, quite a few in the group, all called together and trained together as newsparks. But those were the only ones he'd been close enough to consider brothers, BlueStreak and SnapFlash the closest. They were all gone now, and judging by the easiness of his vents all the ash had been removed from his frame. Kinda stupid how _that_  felt disappointing, as if he'd lost the last connection he had to those he had considered kin.

"Shh... shh... it's okay... it's okay..." Jazz's voice again, Prowl realized he had been keening and got his vocalizer under control again. "There, there, that's right... you are going to be okay..." He was gently rubbing Prowl's hands, standing next to the medical berth Prowl was laid out on, the ops agent's field gentle though flickering with nervousness.

"Why... why are you... doing this?" Jazz didn't like him. Except... except... His behavior had been... but that it _had_  changed didn't explain why.

Jazz hesitated and Prowl wished his visuals weren't inoperative and more of his spacial sensors were active. His fingers twitched, needing to tear more at the plating on his sensor wings to jump start the emergency sensors. So blind to all the world, so little he could actually perceive, it made it hard to read the other mech.

Jazz sighed and sat down on what was probably a chair next to the berth. "You've helped me a lot, been there when I needed you. Now I'm here for you." There was silence for a while. Prowl was too tired to deal with, well, anything. He'd lost everything. Trying to figure things out, trying to do things, it was.. too much for now.

"You can't see me can you?"

Prowl's fingers twitched automatically. "No Jazz. Can't... visual feed is nonfunctional. Environmental sensors... minimal." He reported, voice dull.

"Unnerving, I can see them online, just completely unresponsive." Jazz had let go of one of Prowl's hands, probably to wave it in front of his optics but Prowl's defunct sensors reported only vague fuzz.

"Ask... medic to explain it. Shock... severe shock... grief... does... strange things..." He sounded as exhausted as he felt.

A hand thumped down on his, catching it and jerking it away from his left sensor wing where he had begun prying up the plating on that one as well. "Why are you doing that Prowl?" Jazz asked cautiously. Not scolding, not quite frightened, maybe a bit suspicious. At least Prowl's audials were in tolerably working order.

"Praxians... need the sensor wings... they stopped transmitting... the damage... sometimes inflicting damage can spark enough of a response that the blocks in... blocks in the data flow open? Can't... remember details... just..."

"Doesn't it hurt?"

Prowl felt something like a smile twitch on his face. "Not as much as my spark. And... and better to have them online at least a little. Some sort of failsafe? Kick start? Can't... remember. Part of training for..." He felt his throat tighten, assailed by reminders of all that had been lost, but forced himself to continue through the grief. "for all praxian emergency responders."

"That's awful."

"Better... than alternative... Don't worry... as... as I process and.. and cope with things... my sensor net will come back online. I'll... I'll recover."

He could feel it as much of the tension left Jazz's frame and field. "That's good to hear Prowl."

"Jazz?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks... for what you said... before... about... about me still having... having a spark."

A flash of guilt through the field so closely twined with his. "I never should have said you didn't in the first place."

"Why not? You believed it true."

"It was cruel and petty and if I'd ever bothered to get to know you before... before this I woulda known it wasn't even close to true." Jazz half growled, shame, and oddly anger, interrupting the steady comforting flow of his field.

"It's fine Jazz, nothing for you to worry about. I never... never encouraged anyone to get close after the first hundred or so vorns of the war."

Jazz was silent, his field going quiet and flat as he tried to mask his emotions. Prowl felt his own hold on reality weakening, the grief, the sheer overwhelming loss that weighed down his spark so much harder to bear without the other there supporting him. "Here you are, having lost everything most important to you, and you are worried about how _I_  feel?" A flicker of amusement went through his field. "Sheesh Prowl, how on earth could I have been so very wrong about you?"

"I've always admired you Jazz... after I figured out you really did care about the other Autobots... you're so... so wild, and uncontrolled. I couldn't understand it at first. But... but you look after them, protect them and care for them in your own way. They need you Jazz..." He hurt so much, and was so very tired... all he wanted was to rest... just let go and drift away... "Need you far more than they need a monster like me. Take care of them Jazz... keep them safe..." Just... let go... slip into the darkness.

"They need you too Prowl. I can do a lot, but I can't do everything. You gotta hold on Prowler. I know you've lost an awful lot but there are still mechs here who need you to protect."

He didn't want to stay, just rest... be done... he had lost so much, everything was gone. All his dreams, all his people, his beloved city, even the plates it had been built on.. all gone. "It's... it's too much Jazz... I can't... I just... I just want to rest."

"No. Not yet. You said all you ever wanted was to protect right? I've seen you, I've watched you, even when I wasn't willing to forgive you. You live your function Prowl, you protect. Not just your beloved Praxus, but all of Cybertron. You've been helping protect them all for the whole pit blasted war. I... I might be new to knowing the mech you hide behind your business mask, but I know you aren't one to abandon those who need you."

Pit. Why did he have to be right? Prowl groaned, feeling a sharp pang in his chest atop the dull hollow ache of loss. He noticed a faint beeping in the room had steadied and grown just the slightest bit louder. Sparkpulse monitor, his sluggish processor supplied.

"That's right." Jazz soothed, patting one of Prowl's hands gently, his field opening up again, calm and comforting, flowing over Prowl's agonized one, soothing the spark deep agony. "I know it's hard but that's why you stayed online last time, that's why you'll stay online this time. Just... just let me know whatever you need. I'm gonna be right here the whole time lookin' after you this time, 'stead of the other way around."

Prowl wondered if that meant Jazz considered him a friend now. But it was purely speculation without any feelings or desires connected to it. His emotions, his spark, too burned out, too heavy with grief to feel anything else. He was too tired, too worn, to deal with things. He just let himself drift and process, the warmth of Jazz's field the only shred of relief in the depths of his grief.

"Look, I know you need to rest, and by all means, get in more recharge if you can, but before you konk out, need to tell you something. The information you provided, it worked, they found two survivors. One of them didn't make it back to medical, the other one they are still working on getting enough reconstructive done to bring him back online. But when he's doing a bit better, and you are too, you can visit him. His name is Bluestreak. Don't know if he is yours but... well... when I heard that name."

Prowl couldn't believe it. "Blue...streak..?" Of all the impossible things... of all those who had died the one survivor was his brother. Something like this was too improbable, it could only be an act of Primus, assuming it really was Bluestreak and not some sort of mistake. After all that had happened, after all he had done and suffered, Primus had spared his brother.

"Thank Primus."

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------

 

Prowl let Jazz guide him down the hall, sensor wings hanging low, joints locked in place and unresponsive. From what information he was receiving from them they probably looked broken, but even at the painful angle and with less than a fifth of the sensors functioning he could still get an idea of his surroundings. Still it was easier to just follow Jazz, the other mech keeping him from walking into the walls or other mechs, even letting Prowl lean on him a little without allowing it to be obvious to observers. Jazz, trying to protect his dignity, now _that_ was a reversal.

"Here we are." Jazz said softly, guiding Prowl into one of the rooms. Reflexively Prowl tried to lift his sensor wing to get better readings of his surroundings but they didn't respond any more than his optics did.

Could it really be Bluestreak? The probability was so low, so very low that of all the people that would survive the death of Praxus his closest brother would be of them. He could hear the mech on the medical berth stirring, turning toward them as his processor sorted through the corrupted data flowing in from his sensors. In the end he didn't need his optics to recognize his brother. "Bluestreak." Prowl said, voice weak with relief. "It is perhaps selfish of me, but I am glad that you survived."

"Prowl?" Bluestreak sounded confused, systems still coming online. "Selfish? What do you mean?"

"Oh Prowl, you do know how to ruin a reunion." Jazz groaned with a tense chuckle.

"Sorry, I... I just, when I heard that Praxus had fallen I thought... I knew it was unlikely I would ever see any of you ever again."

"Oh, how very Logical of you." Bluestreak sneered, voice clearing as he became more alert. "Let me guess, you came here to offer the _condolences_ of Autobot command."

Prowl flinched back from the harsh words. "Wh-what? No. I. Praxus was attacked, I came to, to help." He stammered confused, wasn't Bluestreak glad to see him? The probability (84.299%) had been good.

"You... YOU! HOW DARE YOU! IT'S YOUR FAULT! You _DID_ THIS! YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED IT! BUT No! All you care about is your precious Autobots! You never thought about us at all! You could have stopped it!"

"I tried, I warned the high council at Praxus, told them what was coming. Sooner or-"

"WELL YOU SHOULD HAVE TIRED HARDER!" Bluestreak screamed. "DON'T YOU EVEN CARE!?! THEY WERE YOUR OWN PEOPLE!"

"Of course I care, I tried to warn all the neutral cities. This war it-"

"All the neutral cities." Bluestreak sneered, thrashing in the medical berth, as if trying to get up. "All you wanted was to recruit more soldiers for you to get killed in your STUPID WAR! Of _course_ it was Praxus that got hit! IT's all your fault! You did this! Megatron never would have come after us if not for you! Did you think he didn't know you were Praxian? I should have torn your wings off ages ago!"

"Wh-what?" Prowl felt like the bottom of his fuel tank had fallen down through his his pedes, like the floor was opening beneath him. (14.205% probability Megatron would make an example of neutral city of Praxus)

"You brought his gaze upon us! Second in command of the Autobots! Bah!"

It was logical. (28.495%) How had he never considered that? (40.382%)

"Always had to Play HERO!"

The numbers ran and fell over each other (58.329%) in his battle computer, as he sank down through the floor even as Bluestreak continued to castigate him. (62.543%)

"TRAITOR!"

It was his fault Praxus had fallen. (69.250%) Megatron wanted to send a message to the neutrals. (78.235%) Prowl was Praxian. (74.284%) Megatron hated him. (81.352%)

"SPARKLESS MONSTER!"

How could he attack anywhere other than Praxus? (82.351%) It _was_ his fault.

"I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU!"

He was falling into the core of the planet (12.493%), all the way to the center of Cybertron (85.194%), just like Praxus (72.490%) He could feel it even as he could feel the hospital room, (98.275%) hear his brother's distorted hate filled voice. (104.495%)

FATAL ERROR

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------

 

Jazz sat on top of the Decepticon tank stabbing the mech over and over dully. Tanks could be hard to kill, very stubborn, very durable. This one had fallen into stasis but hadn't greyed out yet. Maybe he needed to get a longer blade. He considered beheading the other, visor a cold icy blue. War was ugly. Especially for Decepticons when Jazz needed to blow off some steam. He'd been getting more dangerous, vorn by vorn, it was starting to scare even him a bit now. He was too good at it, too good at killing. Murder and violence were in his spark, perhaps forever.

The tank below him stirred and Jazz let out a grunt. Not as in stasis as he'd thought. He jammed his blade into the plating over the tank's neck cables and began levering it up. The tank let out a groan and twitched again as Jazz slowly widened the gap until he could get his hand in deep enough to cut the main fuel lines. The tank let out a low groan and slowly bled out. Jazz watched the much larger frame slowly turn grey and lifeless. He felt tired, exhausted really, but that was the last of the survivors, all the Decepticons of this squad nothing but grey sparkless husks now.

Jazz sighed and climbed off the pile of deactivated frames. What was this? Fifty-seven? Fifty-eight? Did it even matter anymore? There was an alert on his HUD, a message received. He let out a sigh, he didn't want to deal with his superior officer right now. He would be demanding Jazz to report, to come back, to anything, but Jazz wasn't ready to come back yet. Well, maybe soon. He was tired enough right now to dull the edge of his rage. Maybe he should at least see what his CO had to say. But as he accessed the message he discovered it was from Prowl instead.

Why was Prowl sending him a message? Didn't he know that nothing sent over the net could be totally secure? Had his CO given Prowl some of the ops codes so he could send him a message? Had his CO asked Prowl to call him back? But no, the message was innocuous enough, very little in it that could be used by the Decepticons.

Jazz  
I know you are upset about what you witnessed before your abrupt departure. Do not be overly mad at him. He was deeply hurt at the time of his harsh words but he is my brother. There is an 84.832% chance he will forgive me provided we both survive long enough. I have already forgiven him and I hope you will find it in you to forgive him also.  
Prowl

Simple enough message. Jazz felt a hollowness in his spark. How had Prowl known why Jazz had vanished so suddenly after his first meeting with Bluestreak? Then again, if he'd learned anything about the tactician in the last couple decaorns it was that Prowl _did_  know how to read feelings. It had been so hard to stand there, listening to Bluestreak bawl him out, listening to those harsh hateful words while he could feel the tactician's frail frame tremble where it leaned on him, as if each word had been a physical blow. It had been all he could do to keep his mouth shut, to keep from attacking the other praxian, physically more than verbally. All he had seen was the glow of spilled energon and only knowing how much Prowl valued the other kept him from tearing Bluestreak's spark out, or at least his vocalizer. But Jazz had been the only thing keeping the tactician upright. Up until he crashed that was. And while he was trying to get his shaking hands to cooperate and pick the tactician up the medics had finally succeeded in injecting the engineer with enough sedatives to put him under again despite how wound up he'd been.

As soon as Jazz had gotten Prowl back to his room he'd left, knowing that if he stayed he would attack the badly injured praxian engineer, and that was not acceptable. So he had gone AWOL to go Decepticon hunting, as he often did when he needed to blow off some serious steam, focusing that hate, that anger, that need to protect his injured friend, against the real enemy.

If that was how brothers behaved he really _was_  better off having none to call family. But the friendship he'd established with the tactician was so new and raw, and Prowl had been so utterly emotionally devastated from losing his home, his people. Jazz couldn't stand it, just _couldn't stand_  how Bluestreak had treated him. The blighted glitch was _supposed_  to know Prowl better than someone who was no more than a work acquaintance as Jazz had been. How could he have thought or believed such things much less said them out loud? Hadn't he _seen_  how his words had torn the gentle bot's spark to bits? Primus, he'd thought Prowl's spark was just going to give up and give out.

And here Prowl, still (if Jazz had been informed correctly) in his sickbed, systems still dysfunctional from the shock he'd gone through but stubbornly at work again (the stubborn fool had started going through data and plans as soon as his battle computer had become fully functional again), sending Jazz a message to encourage him to forgive the bot who'd raked _him_  over the coals. He'd been turned on and betrayed by his the very last of his kin when Prowl needed him most, when they were both suffering one of the deepest losses possible to their people, and Prowl's concern was for the ungrateful Bluestreak, and Jazz for having had to witness the fallout. How in Cybertron had Jazz not seen the endless compassion of the quiet unassuming tactician? Looking back, it wasn't that Jazz had never witnessed it, it had been there all along, little things that were so easily dismissed, that he let slip between the cracks. It had _always_ been there, he had just _willfully_ ignored it. Never letting himself see what had always been there.

Quiet didn't mean cold. Logical didn't mean unfeeling. The icy exterior hid something soft and warm.

And now, with the fall of Praxus so recent, with the destruction of home and all his people hovering over Prowl like a dark cloud of ash, so very fragile. A delicate mesh of finest crystal. Beautiful but needing protection in this harsh world. The Prime had tasked Jazz to look after the tactician. Had insisted that the apparent drone was worth it, would surprise him. The Prime had been right. Prowl _was_ worth it. He did care, about _every_ one. _Every last thing_ he did was for others. Their safety, their health, their happiness.

Even after all Bluestreak had done. Even after how awful Jazz had been to him, the attacks, the cruel words, the brutal surprise training exercises. Even after losing everything that mattered most to him.

And the only personal thing he had _ever_  asked for was for Jazz to forgive his brother. Surely even a dark, violent, murderous spark like his could do _that_  much for a brightspark like Prowl, no matter how much even the thought of the grey praxian engineer made him boil with rage. Maybe it was time to head back. He shut off his visuals briefly to compose a message.

Prowl  
I will try  
Jazz

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------

 

"Do you have any idea how many mechs have died because of him?"

"He doesn't even care."

"Monster."

"He's even worse than Megatron."

"Doesn't feel a thing."

"Sparkless machine."

"Glorified calculator."

"I hear he just kept working when Praxus fell."

"Went to make an appearance and told the rescuers they were doing it wrong."

"Arrogant jerkwad."

The words always followed Prowl, cruel and biting, but they didn't matter. The mechs who said them didn't know him, they saw only what he wanted them to see, what the cause needed them to see. There were those who knew who he really was, those who truly _saw_  him. They were the only ones whose words truly mattered.


	9. Finding Prowl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So what is Jazz like now? And I wrote this before I wrote Jazz's part of... 'the Praxus incident'.  
> Cybertron Jazz is hard to write.  
> Earth Jazz's internal monologue was originally one REALLY long paragraph.  
> Earth Jazz is also hard to write.

Jazz stared at the ceiling of the medbay, feeling too lazy to sit up just now. His injuries were not as bad as they could have been, thanks in no small part to Prowl. He'd been wearing a smug smirk since he'd first come back online after the battle. True part of it was the simple post-battle high of having somehow survived, enhanced by the whole 'didn't have to watch any of the others die either' that Prowl had managed to make a norm these days. War was an awful hideous thing, but so long as they were trapped in it, it was so much easier to bear when casualties were so far between. So the Decepticons weren't dropping like flies, at least the Autobots weren't either. He could live with it, _live_ being the operative word. As in that thing that so few of those he had known were still able to do, either by being dead or by having their sparks so broken they could only survive instead of truly live. Funny how that had been him not too long ago. Then again with his four million year nap it _had_ been quite a long time ago, even if his memories said otherwise.

Odd how they'd slept almost as long as they had fought in the war. And now they were on this strange new world so full of other things that lived, strange squishy things, so weak and flimsy, yet the humans... Oh the humans were brilliant, minds like a regular mechanism some of them, and strong sparks even if medical/xeno had yet to figure out how an organic frame could sustain a spark. Great music though, anything that made music like that _had_ to have a spark, whatever form it took. That music was _alive_ , it made you dance and scream and hope and despair. Oh their music was incredible. He'd get it all one day, if he had to drive to every corner of the planet himself.

At the thought his speakers tried to come out and an error message popped up on his HUD. Right. Still pretty banged up. That'd have to wait, besides Ratchet always got tiffed if Jazz played music in his medbay. Ah well. It was good to be alive at least to _be_  banged up, and all in all it could've been worse, much worse. For a brief moment the mirth left his expression, leaving it grim and serious as he considered what had nearly happened. Getting stomped on by Devastator... he probably wouldn't have survived, and while returning to The Well didn't frighten him per-say, losing even a single Autobot when there were so few of them on this world... well things would get pretty bad for the Autobots, especially if that Autobot had been him.

Not that he was vain... Okay. He _totally_ was vain. But then again, he _was_ pretty flippin' fantastic if he did say so himself. It wasn't really vanity if it was true was it? He knew Prowl would disagree, they'd had that conversation before, but Prowl tended to disagree with anything _fun_. But without Jazz to lean on he knew things would get hard on Prime real fast. Jazz wasn't TiC for nothing, indeed he'd have been _SiC_  if it weren't for the seniority thing Prime was held up on. _He_  was Prime's right hand mech, the one he relied on when things got sticky, to rally and lead the troops, keep everyone happy and hopeful, even Optimus himself. And Jazz did a mighty fine job of that, he'd done a fine job of it long before he'd even gotten _close_  to command staff rank, part of why he was trusted to get such a rank. The rest (and bulk) was because he was daaaaaang good at everything else he did too.

Unofficial morale officer, though, was still his most precious title. It was a treasure given him by his fellow Autobots that he hid deep in his spark to keep it warm on cold nights. He looked after his Autobots, making sure they held strong, that they were never alone when the shadows came, that they trusted each other and their leaders, that they got to kick back and relax before the tension of war made them snap. Ideally long before. Happy soldiers that trusted each other, they were an army's greatest weapon. Loyalty over fear, love over hate. He hadn't believed in it at first. Foolish Autobot sentiment he'd thought at first, but he'd seen it, a living growing thing, like earth's 'plants' and 'flowers' that seemed so puny and ugly at first only to suddenly open up and be beautiful and strong.

Autobots didn't break ranks. They didn't abandon their comrades. They didn't abandon anyone. They fought and sacrificed to the very end, binding tight to each other to become something greater than the sum of their parts. Autobots were combiners by nature, if not physically then in spark. It had drawn him in and swallowed him and he'd never even wanted to escape. And he'd done everything he could to spread and share it back out. Love was funny that way, the more you gave, the more you ended up getting and even having all on your own, and there were few things Jazz loved more than being loved. So he aggressively loved everyone, taking each and every Autobot as kin, someone to love and be loved by, making them his. His to love, his to protect, his to care for. And he made sure they were all cared for as much as he could, keeping their sparks alight with love, his love, and ensuring the channels of love from one bot to another were open so they could love each other when he wasn't around and stay strong against the dark. Love and fun and hope, that was what he brought to the table, and with such a small ring here on earth it was easy to keep them all a strong united team.

All except one.

Prowl. Jazz's amiable smile faltered again and lapsed into seriousness as he considered the mech. He'd seen it of late, the shadows that danced around the tactician. He'd always been isolated, acting cool and aloof, setting himself up as the scapegoat to draw all the anger and frustration that would have otherwise fallen on Optimus as their leader, and while Jazz _could_ see a certain merit to that, the distance between the tactician and the other 'bots had always troubled him. Sometimes he hardly seemed on the same side as them, as if Prowl were some sort of grim observer rather than a participant. It had been hard hard work to get the other 'bots to start to see through the dark mask the tactician wore, but it had been working, their sparks were starting to open toward him, those channels of love prepared, just waiting for the floodgates to open and baaaam! Prowl would be included in that great big web of love and trust that held the Autobots strong.

If only the bot didn't insist on isolating himself so, and torturing himself over silly things. Sometimes Jazz worried that the bot didn't even WANT to be happy, a very real threat what with his history of crippling depression, something Jazz must not allow to overtake the tactician again.

But this, this would help. Jazz's smile came back again slowly, slowed not by reluctance, but by the sheer joy of the smile slowly taking over. That, yes that, was the other part of his happiness after this last battle. Good ol' Prowl, his actions in this most recent battle had truly shown the color of his spark. Now there would be no one left in the crew who would dare say a cold sparked thing against the mech. Jazz couldn't have been more proud of Prowl if he'd saved _his_ life, which incidentally he had, but that was beside the point. The point was that Prowl had proven his absolute loyalty and self-sacrificing nature before all of them, and quite fiercely too. No one would forget for quite a while that last attack, the ferocity and _power_ that people all too often forgot Prowl held within him.

All the crew was primed, all that was left was for the stubborn tactician to let them in. Too bad that was the hardest part. The mech had a helm so hard even a blast from Megatron's alt mode woulda bounced clean off. Only mech Jazz had met that could match him for stubbornness. 'cept maybe Prime. But this battle would help convince Prowl to open up too. Use that logic against him, tell him the other bots saw Prowl rescue him and were willing to give him a chance. After all, Prowl knew how much everyone loved Jazz and his logic would explain well enough to the stubborn mech that they would be inclined to forgive and love someone who protected something they loved. Then Prowl'd finally let himself open his optics enough to let himself _see_  that the bots didn't hate him anymore, that things had changed, that he didn't _have_  to be alone anymore.

The blasted mech was so full of love toward the other Autobots and yet you'd think it was the most shameful thing in the world with how jealously he guarded the truth of it, and so the block between the tactician and the other bots. It wasn't like the love wasn't there, it was just being _blocked_  and Jazz needed to get it flowing so everything would hold together right and then that bright light of love would drive back the shadows that were coming after his best friend, trying to eat him alive. It was only as a full functioning unit, bound by unbreakable ties, that they would triumph over the built-for-war frames of the Decepticons. Only love would bring them victory.

Love and Prowler's flippin fantastic battle strategies. Honestly that bot was a genius, no matter how stupid he was about his, and everyone else's, feelings. Yes, now that he thought of it, even if he wasn't allowed to walk around yet, surely he could find a way to get into contact with Prowl, get this thing started, open the stubborn bot's helm toward giving the others a chance to show their love. Where was the tactician?

Was that? Nope. Or over there? No. Ugh everywhere he looked there was too much, _color_. Not in the overcrowded main room of the medbay. Jazz squirmed, almost getting out of the medical berth, but there was Ratchet, working on reattaching Sunstreaker's arm while Wheeljack was welding a patch on the stubborn medic's back to replace the temporary one from earlier. "Oh Raaaaaatcheet." Jazz singsonged across the room.

"Go back into recharge Jazz."

"Awwww don't be like that Ratch, you know you're my favorite medic."

"I am busy Jazz."

"Raaaaaatcheeeeettttt." The medic continued his work, scowl deepening as a few of the other mechs in the medbay stifled giggles as Jazz continued. "Raaaatchet. Ratchet. Rrrrrrrrrrraaaaatchet. Raaaaachet. Raaaaaaaaaaaatcheeeeeeet. Raaatcheeeeeet."

"FOR PRIMUS'S SAKE JAZZ! IF YOU ARE BORED TALK TO BLUESTREAK! I'M BUSY!" Sniggers cropped up among the disabled mechs scattered all throughout the medbay and Ratchet looked up from his work long enough to sweep the room with an enraged glare that no one was stupid enough to meet, even Wheeljack ducking away from his work briefly to avoid the laser like rage gaze.

"Buuuuuuut Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaacheeeeeeeeeeee-"

"Wheeljack! Go find out what is wrong with Jazz or weld his lipplates shut!"

"-eeeeet. What? Sicin' 'Jacks on me?" The saboteur protested but fell into a smirking quiet as the engineer wove his way over through the pile up of injured and partially disassembled bots. The last battle had been bad. One of the main reasons Jazz was pushing things. Everyone needed a good laugh at a time like this.

"So then Jazz, what might the problem be?" Wheeljack asked, optics crinkled with mirth despite his obvious tiredness.

"So no one offlined right?"

"Yeah, we told you that when you first came back online. Optimus will be out for a while longer yet but everyone has been sufficiently stabilized. We aren't going to lose anyone today."

"Mhmm great... Yep..." And that was one of the reasons why he had accepted talking to Wheeljack instead of continuing to pester Ratchet. The medic had been working hard just to keep everyone alive, and was still working on repairing the most dangerous injuries first. Jazz could allow the CMO to hand him over to Wheeljack. Heck even Perceptor was busy at work. They really needed more medics here on earth. Maybe Prowl could put his powerful computer to work figuring out a way to get some more bots in from Cybertron. "And... ya'know, I can't help but notice... Prowler's not out here."

"Hum... yeah... about that..."

"So he's gonna be okay too, good to know, I know he got his doorwings blasted even before he decided to take on Devastator all by his lonesome, so he's probably doin' poorly and bein' kept in one 'a the back rooms 'n all. But tell me straight 'Jack, How is he?" Jazz wasn't able to keep his concern from his voice. He'd fallen offline not long after Devastator had kicked Prowl through that building, and the praxian had _not_  looked good. But then who would after ramming Devastator repeatedly in vehicle mode? Prowl'd even actually managed to do some serious damage to the combiner gestalt.

"Yeah... hm... we're sure he'll be fine."

"Oh well, that's good." Jazz hesitated. Something in his code was nagging at him though and he looked at the engineer, really _looked_  at him. Twitching fingers, tapping against each other, the colors his audial fins had been flashing, the nervousness that was visible, despite the perpetual blast-mask, in the crimping of the metal around the optics.

"Wheeeeeljaaaaack." Jazz said in a low, dangerous growl. "What are you hiding?" He asked, unaware of how his plating had flared, and of the dangerous glint to his visor that always reminded the other Autobots that their TiC was the deadliest of special ops.

"Um... so... Prowl is sort of.. ya'know." The engineer gestured vaguely.

"Pit-slaggit Wheels, you'd better tell me right this instant."

"We couldn't find him."

Jazz's processor whirred for a while without processing any actual thoughts as he tried to comprehend, tried to parse the words. Then it clicked and his voice dropped to become even more dangerous, his spreading smile something of darkest nightmares. "Wheeljack. Buddy. Ol' Pal." Wheeljack was not within reach, _very carefully_ not within reach of the dangerous mech that Jazz was all too quickly devolving into. " _Tell me you know where Prowl is_."

"Ah, yes.. well."

And then it didn't matter the distance because Jazz was out of the medical berth, ruined legs trembling as they struggled to hold up his damaged frame, eased by the fact that almost half of his weight was on Wheeljack as dark fingers hooked into the engineer's collar fairing. He wasn't hurting the mech, Jazz, TiC of the Autobots, didn't hurt his fellow Autobots, but his battle coding was going nuts, wild and angry, processor threads snarling and unraveling. It was all he could do not to _strangle_ the (probably) innocent mech. "Where. Is. Prowl?"

"We were unable to find him. Too many injured." Ratchet spoke up from the other end of the room. And Jazz's attention shifted to the CMO. Stay calm, don't lose it, stay calm, don't hurt anyone.

"You glitches LEFT HIM BEHIND!" Jazz roared, anger flaring out in his field as he half clambered up onto Wheeljack in an effort to shift weight off of his creaking damaged legs. Anger flaring outward was better, safer than the kind that boiled inward, dark and deadly and murderous. He had to find Prowl, Prowl was in danger, it was Jazz's _job_  to look after the idiot. One of his oldest orders still standing. After all these millennia.

"Cool it Jazz. The human authorities called in, one of the humans found him. He's alright."

Jazz felt his growling engine quieting a bit. "Alright?"

"Sheeesh Ratchet, couldn't you have said something sooner?" Wheeljack whined, shifting a bit so he half held the damaged saboteur, acutely aware of the creaking metal of the TiC's mangled legstruts.

"Apparently he told the human his condition was stable. Low on fuel and badly damaged, but stable. We'll be sending Hoist and Grapple to pick him up later." Ratchet replied not looking up from where he was almost done reattaching Sunstreaker's arm.

Jazz blinked a few times behind his visor, but his battle protocols had all cycled down. The danger was past. Jazz the Autobot TiC was back, the darker past Jazz cycling back into hibernation. Jazz snorted. "Frag that." He said, dropping down from the engineer and landing with a faint stagger on legs that were still mostly dismantled. "Ah'm goin after him right now." He said haughtily, trying to get the casual jaunty bounce back into his steps and failing. Pit his legs were mangled, but he'd be scrapped before he left Prowl injured and away from home. "Still can't believe you glitches left him behind."

"Jazz get back on that medical berth. You'll ruin your legs." Ratchet said flatly.

"Common Jazz, let's get you back to the berth." Wheeljack said, reaching out and making an attempt to catch Jazz by a shoulder strut while the assembled Autobots (the ones that weren't in stasis or recharge) were whispering and murmuring, undecided as to if Jazz was right on or just being difficult.

"Sorry 'jack, gotta go get mah bro." Jazz said, knocking the engineer's heavy servo away easily. A cheer went up from the assembled bots bringing a flicker of warmth to his spark. Jazz, who never left a mech behind, and Autobots cheerin' for him to be going after Prowl? It was ready, they were ready. Especially after seeing Prowl fight the way he had, taking on Devastator himself just to keep Jazz from getting crushed, even starting the attack in the middle of Ratchet patching his damaged doorwing.

"Ratchet?" Wheeljack wasn't quite bold enough to try mech-handling Jazz, not after how unbalanced he had acted just a little while earlier. At least not without backup.

Ratchet just grumbled something, working on welding the unconscious Sunstreaker's plating back together. "That's" Jazz broke off as he nearly collapsed, stumbling hard. Pit his legs were unsteady. "That's right, Ah'm not TiC fer nothing! Not ev'n Ratchet dare tryn' stop me in mah holy quest." Why was the floor of the Ark bouncing like that? He could hear voices around but he was too focused on his goal, on finding Prowl, to let himself be distracted. Wheeljack was following him, limping slightly as his own damaged leg dragged behind him, but not interfering, not yet. And yet... something in his code flagged Ratchet's behavior as odd. Shouldn't Ratchet be trying to stop him? Something wasn't quite right. He kept an optic on Ratchet as he slowly passed the CMO on his way out of the medbay.

Teletran-1 would know where Prowl was, Jazz would get the location from there.. or he'd beat up Hoist and Grapple until they caved. He'd at least be able to find the mech and stick to him until help got there. Pit-spawned glitching Autobots leavin' without Prowl. What was wrong with them?

Jazz was so dazed with pain and snarled code that he didn't react quite quickly enough when Ratchet reached over and flicked open the panel at the base of his helm, inserting a cable with a practiced movement. "Ratchet Whadderyou" And then Jazz's vocalizer crashed and the medic moved forward catching the suddenly stiff mech, joints locked up as all of TiC's systems crashed.

If there was one thing Ratchet had discovered stubborn autobots _couldn't_  argue with, it was medically induced stasis.

"Awwwww. Didja have to Ratchet?"

"You want him to ruin his legs completely? As it is I am going to have completely redo the struts and start reconstruction all over again." The CMO groused.

"But he's so _cool_  when he gets over protective like that."

"Shut up Bumblebee or I'll short out _your_  mouth circuits too."

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------

 

Prowl almost didn't make it to her home, and the only reason he made it all the way into her garage was because after she opened it manually she reminded him that part of the reason she wanted him someplace out of sight was because she was worried that the bad robots (Deceptidroids? What had he called them?) might fly over and see him munged up in her driveway. She wasn't sure how reasonable an idea it was, and it was mostly made up, but it apparently it was enough for his exhausted mind because it allowed her to coax him the last couple yards into the garage. A tide of relief flowed over her when she finally closed the garage door behind him. It probably wouldn't hold up against anything that _really_  wanted to get in but it did provide an illusion of security. It was the best she could do to keep him safe really.

When she came back from calling the police (that call had taken a while, they hadn't really believed her at first until they'd asked one of their supervisors who confirmed that, yes, one of the carbots was missing) Prowl seemed to be asleep (did robot cars sleep?). For a while she had been afraid that he'd, well, died, but she remembered that he said that most of what he needed was rest. It was still weird to think of this dull, black and white police car as a person. This whole day had been surreal, starting when the first booming crashes and explosions had gone off and everyone had started being evacuated because the giant robots had begun fighting in downtown. It felt as if any moment now she would wake up. Or rather she felt like it was something she _should_  wake up from. She was pretty sure the irritation of her throat from rock dust wasn't something dreamed up.

At the beginning of the drive she had gotten a little out of him at least but it seemed just driving was a drain and soon he'd been so tired he'd hardly seemed aware. And every time he dropped off his engine would stall. So she'd opted just to ramble at him endlessly about everything because the sound of her voice seemed to help him hold on. A couple times she could have sworn she heard him humming for a little while before it dissolved into static or a soft noise of pain. It was weird to think of your car as alive. Well, not just alive, everyone anthropomorphized their vehicles a little, that's why you said that your car 'died' rather than just 'stopped working'. But it was weird to think of ~~your~~ (well he wasn't really _her_  car now was he?) _a_ car as being a sentient being, one that was hurt and needed comfort.

If he needed rest she shouldn't disturb him, but surely she could get him cleaned up a little right? Secretly she just didn't want to leave just yet, some protective instinct toward someone wounded, needing to be reassured that he was okay (which he wasn't, but he was as okay as she could manage and his friends _would_  come). She got a clean rag and went over to him carefully wiping the cement dust from earlier away, though she avoided any place where the metal was crumpled. If those were considered wounds could they even get infected? He _was_  made of metal not organic stuff. And the last thing she wanted was to wake him up by poking at his injuries. Had his paint always seemed this dull? She tried to remember, but when they'd first met it had been raining and that had given him a wet glossy sheen. She focused on the memories, and those of the other times she'd seen him. Yes his colors had definitely been sharper initially. Crisp and brightly contrasting. Now, and perhaps the last couple times she had caught a glimpse of him it had been... duller. Probably just now, it would make sense that his appearance would suffer with his health?

She ran a hand along his side lightly, tracing the hole through his passenger side door. It looked sort of like a bullet hole, perfectly round, but far too large and the edges looked melted while below the metal covering the internals looked scorched. Laser fire perhaps? What would something like that do to a human? She shuddered. Humans were very lucky indeed that the, what had he said they were called? Autobots? Yes, the Autobots. Humans were very lucky the Autobots were so intent on keeping them out of harm's way, and that the Decevidroids mostly ignored them. How long would humanity last if they decided to kill them off?

And she had been very lucky indeed that this strange robot car man had been passing by one cold wet night and had taken pity on a very silly young woman who was in over her head, freezing to death, and saved her. And perhaps, in a way, he had been lucky that the same rather silly young woman had gone looking for a strange car that might either _be_ a man or have a man _inside_ , braving an unstable post-battle ground to find a strange car with half a building poised to crush it and had managed to take it home with her.

"Though usually I wouldn't bring such a wreck home with me." She whispered softly, one side of her mouth quirking up in a smile. "But I guess I've made an exception for you." She let out a brief slightly giddy smile. "I've never really brought a guy home with me either. Oh Tiff would have a conniption to find out the first guy I've ever brought home with me is actually just some wounded alien robot car." She laughed softly and then sighed. There was a very faint hum coming off of the 'sleeping' car, as if there were still very small subtle systems still running inside him. Well Prowl had mentioned... auto-repair systems right? She hesitated and then turned her head and leaned it against the side of his door (keeping a ways away from the hole of course). There it was, a soft hum though the metal didn't seem to vibrate at all.

She let out a soft sigh. It was a soothing sound. He was okay. He would be okay. She pulled away, still crouched staring at his side quietly for a few more moments before getting up. She didn't want to wake him. He'd rest, he'd heal, and his friends would come, soon hopefully, and take him to get fixed up by their doctors or mechanics or whatever living machines had. It was kind of sad, to know that he'd be gone soon, and she might never see him again. But he needed his rest and her nerves had finally calmed down. She carefully snuck out of the garage, closing it up and locking it. He'd sleep better without someone else there fiddling around. Cars liked garages, or at least... human cars did. Did alien cars have garages? Or did they rest as robots? So so many questions.

She hoped that his friends didn't come tonight. Maybe tomorrow, after they, and Prowl (and she too) had gotten some rest. Maybe Prowl would wake up again before he left? And she could talk to him a while? Ask some questions? That would be fun, or nice, or both. Even if they didn't really talk about his people (Maybe it was classified? Military secrets or something?) it would be nice to talk to him a little, thank him for the other night, see what he thought of ordinary earth things, maybe she could teach him a bit about humans even? They were still pretty new to earth and they couldn't have learned _everything_  in such a short time, especially since they were fighting a war or something against the badbots.

She was still thinking about such things as she prepared for bed and lay down in her warm bed. Did robot cars get cold? Was he cold? Should she take him a blanket? Except he was all bashed up and hurt, would the pressure of a covering on dented and crumpled metal be like that for human flesh torn and raw? She wished she knew more about him and his kind. He was down there alone. Well not down, her apartment wasn't _that_  big. Just over, through the wall really. Was he okay? Stop worrying. Maybe she should go be there with him? That was silly, he was asleep, he needed his rest. But if a human was in a hospital and sick it was good for them to have someone there right? Even if they were asleep? But he wasn't human. Something that was so basic and obvious for humans might be completely wrong or even offensive to an alien. So was it a person thing? Or a 'humans are social animals' thing? Ugh.

She tossed and turned, ideas, mind, running helter skelter. What was right? What was wrong? She wanted to learn more. She wanted to know more about this Prowl. And the robot aliens. And all of them, all of it.

She woke to the sound of shrieking metal. She wasn't sure what was going on or why and scrambled around, falling out of bed, mind dazed. What was going on? Car crash outside? She stumbled to her feet as the sound continued to go on and on. It sounded like it was happening in the next room. What the hell?

The next room.

The garage!

She was out of her room like a shot. Prowl Prowl Prowl Prowl Prowl! Her hands fumbled with a doorknob and she could hear thumps and scraping. Dang it! Why did she lock the door to the garage? She thumped against the door and fumbled again, and the deadbolt unlocked. She thumped into the door and it opened. The garage was quiet, and horribly empty. Sure all her things were there but there was an enormous lack of one bashed up alien car robot. Her eyes flicked to the garage door. It had been torn open and she ran to it, staring out the huge hole into the night. No sign of cars or jets or anything. The night was quiet, as quiet as suburbia ever was.

Prowl was gone, without a trace.

She could only hope it was his friends who had come for him, not his enemies.


	10. Talking with Tiff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We still don't know who got to Prowl first, the Autobots or Decepticons but life doesn't stop just because some roboman drops into yours. Our reader has to keep moving forward, and since she can't seem to find any Autobots she ends up talking things over with someone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone commented on there not being much dialogue last chapter. And then Tiff happened and I need more practice with dialogue so... this happened  
> Second chapter this week, so a bonus chapter. Enjoy.

There wasn't really much she could do. There was no sign of Prowl, and nothing to indicate who had taken him, except that they had huge hands that tore through the metal garage door like it was tinfoil. It looked like hands and fingers not claws so that was something right? She had tried to convince herself that it had been his friends, after all how would the bad bots know where to find him? but she couldn't settle. She tried to lay down, but she kept getting up again to pace. In the end she called the police to try to get some information but they hadn't heard from the Autobots. The city was going to pay to fix her garage door though, which was good because she couldn't afford to pay for it and her landlady was going to flip when she saw.

Prowl was going to be okay. He was going to be okay. His friends had come and gotten him. They had just torn open her garage and run off with him because they were worried. They were his friends after all, and he had been injured. Prowl was going to be fine. He was back with his people, and unlike her they _could_  help him, get him fixed up and well again. He was going to be fine.

She didn't sleep that night.

When the sun finally came up she was crying. It was stupid. Really stupid. He was probably fine. But part of her felt like the Autobots would have at least knocked, rather than just stealing away in the night. But then again. Just... so stupid. But she felt better after she had cried. At the moment there was nothing she could do about Prowl, so she would focus on other things. Like getting her car back.

Except it _wasn't_  the car she _wanted_  to go looking for.

Ugh! It was all so stuuuuupid.

Oh well. Next time the robots were fighting she'd be able to see him and know he was okay.

Except she didn't know what he looked like, just as a car, not as a robot. Though he would probably be black and white like the one called Jazz.

Stupid normal boring car. Ugh.

She used to like her car. But now she was walking to downtown, to the site of the recent battle, where her workplace had been demolished, to find out if her boring ordinary car was still in one piece. Her life's brush with the fantastic was over. She needed to accept that and move on. She didn't notice a rather crumpled looking yellow VW bug tailing her.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------

 

The walk to downtown reminded her too much of Prowl, she ended up spending some coins to take the bus, noticing a funny orange mini semi truck and a green jeep looking thing, a landrover? that looked sort of damaged. Strange vehicle to see in town, it looked like an off-road vehicle. Ugh. Now she was spending too much time looking at vehicles. This was silly.

Ugh downtown was a mess. Buildings destroyed all over, clusters of humans and equipment working to clear roads. She got off the bus and an idea came to her. Sometimes the Autobots helped with reconstruction after battles! If she could just find one she could find out if they had Prowl! Except none of the clean up crews or officials were willing to let any civilians close. Stay back, stay away, it isn't safe.

Ugh. Find stupid car. Stupid car. Stupid non transforming not a person car. Why couldn't she stop thinking of Prowl? Every blasted police car, and there were so very many of them, trying to herd civilians away from danger areas. Again that yellow-orange semi truck thing. Who would paint their truck that color? Ugh.

UGH!

But she found her car. It was toast. Just like her job. No job, no car, and an angry land lady. She remembered now all the reasons why having giant fighting robots on earth was a bad thing. Collateral damage. But the death count had been low, single digit even though the fight had taken place in the middle of downtown. And it didn't matter what the humans wanted really, they couldn't get rid of the Decepticons, only the Autobots, and without the Autobots _EVERYTHING_  would be toast, instead of just some things. It was easy to blame all the robots for this, to say if the Autobots weren't fighting with the Decepticons half of downtown wouldn't be destroyed. And it was true in a way. If it weren't for the Autobots _All_  of downtown would have been destroyed instead.

She could see a couple people protesting unhappily, but it wasn't much. Most people were too bright-hearted to hate on the Autobots, but how long would that last?

She really hated that she looked at the world this way, it was... depressing.

Focus on what you can do, find out if you can get your old job back and start looking for a new one if you can. One where it is easy to get to by public transportation if possible. Her car was under half a ton of concrete and she didn't have the money to revive it. No, everything she had was going to have to be carefully conserved so she could survive until her next paycheck, wherever that might come from. Focus on the problem at hand, don't borrow trouble, don't think about giant fighting robots.

She sighed, she had liked her job. But she had Greg and Tiff's numbers. Maybe she should call them and see how things looked that way and if there was a chance she'd be able to get her old job back when things got rebuilt, or if it was going to move to another city, or just a different building? Either way Greg should know, he was supervisor or something?

So why didn't she want to call him? Ugh. Except she knew the reason, a reason she was reluctant to admit even to herself. It felt disloyal to Prowl. He had something like a crush on her. That was so stupid she refused to admit it even to herself. Better to head home and try to contact Tiff.

She didn't notice the dented green landrover following her home, sneaking around corners and following her in ways that weren't always entirely legal driving (or entirely subtle). But then again, she wasn't really looking. After all, Prowl was injured, he wasn't going to be following her for her to catch a glimpse of so she didn't bother being alert.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------

 

"Oh My Gosh! How can you not have heard? Have you been under a rock all week?"

"Oh come on Tiff, the battle was only yesterday and I was tired afterward."

"Oh yeah, and what about this morning?"

"I was looking for my car Tiff."

"Really? And how is it? I thought that parking garage collapsed."

"It did. My car is toast."

"Huh, Okay. ANYWAY. It has been _allllll_  over the news. One of the Autobots got lost yesterday during the battle. Like not dead lost, like literally lost. They actually lost one of them, how do you lose a giant talking robot? And would you use a giant metal detector to find them?" Tiff Joked.

"Oh Tiff. That's terrible."

"Oh come on, wouldn't that be awesome? Giant robots running around the city with giant metal detectors like those weirdos at the beach? It would be awesome. Anyway they lost one of their own, and they were really upset. Can you believe they were fighting here? Here? Did you get to see them? They are even cooler in person. I got to see some of them. One of them, he even winked at me. I mean, I'm not sure, but he might have when he was helping me out of the building. He was awesome. I think he likes me. Can you imagine? Hot robot guy? It's the classic cross culture romance taken to the max. Him, from a distant planet far far away, me, from earth, one of the small weak creatures he has dedicated his life to protecting. Oh... it's so romantic..."

She couldn't help laughing at it all. "Are you sure he winked at you or was your imagination running away with you again?"

"Okay fine, he didn't wink at me. But he was nice and polite. I mean, they are warriors, but instead of being rude and harsh he was rather nice in a dorky, smart guy sort of way."

She sighed, feeling a sharp pang at the description. It was a little like Prowl, though she would use the word adorable instead of dorky, and maybe a little bit awkward, too literal. Hm... Prowl. She hoped he was alright. She had wanted to talk to Tiff about him but Tiff had started out with all her things she needed to say and

"-and then you'll blow up the president's mansion and eat his dog and"

Tiff's words had begun registering again. "Wait what?"

"Finally, I was worried I had lost you. Something has got you Deee stract ted. What is going on girl? Spill it. You _know_  I need gossip to live." And she could hear the playful smirk in Tiff's voice. The knot of tension that had been building in her chest since Prowl had vanished began to loosen. It was good to have someone she could talk to, a best friend, even if said friend was as ridiculous and loudmouthed as Tiff.

"Well... Um... I sorta... met Prowl."

"What? You are lying, tell me you are lying. Oh my gosh! That is so so great! So good so great! OH MY GOSH! WHEN!?! Girl if you lying to me I am going to kill you! OH MY GOSH! What was he like? Did you kiss? Did things get _steamy_  between you and your sweet hunky secret agent admirer?"

She laughed blushing a bit, feeling the knot of misery that had settled in her heart after losing Prowl start to loosen a bit. If nothing else, Tiff did always cheer you up with her silliness. "It's not like that Tiff. In fact I'm pretty sure it can't ever quite be like that." She laughed.

"Oh? Why? Is he old? Come on, I know even someone as boring as you wouldn't be put off by something like scars. Does he have them? How brutal are they? Dang girl, you gotta get me pictures. Or better yet, let me meet this hunky secret agent of yours. If you don't want him I'll be _glaaaad_  to take him off your hands."

"Oh? And what about Rolf-from-the-diner? Didn't you say he was about to ask you out?" She teased back.

"What him?" Tiff made a dismissive sound over the phone. "Oh please, you know secret agents trump diner workers every day."

"So then you are dumping Rolf or is that pending my releasing Prowl to you?"

"Of course I'm not going to dump him now, not ditching my options just yet. After all, who knows but you might change your mind and go after your Prowler _after all_." Tiff dropped her voice into a low teasing purr for the last couple words.

She laughed and laughed. "Oh man. Oh Tiff, you have no idea."

"Then _tell me_  GURL! I need to know whats what and what up 'n down! Dang it girl, you are laughing _way way_  too much. This must be juicy indeed. Quit holding out on me."

"Well if you wouldn't keep interrupting every sentence Tiff."

"Touche, you know my weaknesses all too well. Fine, I'll try to shut up so you c'n talk. No promises, but I'll try. Just you've gotta tell me before I explode. EXPLODE!"

"Alright Tiff."

"Seriously girlfriend, if I explode because you don't tell me, I'm charging you for my medical bills. Or I'll be dead and you'll have to live with the guilt of killing your own best friend."

"TIFF!"

"What?"

"SHUT UP!" She yelled laughing so hard she could barely see out her own eyes.

"Fine fine." Tiff fell silent but she waited a while longer before speaking, just to make sure Tiff would remain quiet.

"Okay, so you remember the battle yesterday? I've... I've sort of been, don't you dare start, just stay quiet before I lose my nerve Tiff. So I've been picking up some information and I thought maybe, just maybe, that Prowl... might be one of them." She trailed off.

"Like... one of the alien bots?" Tiff asked carefully, not wanting to interrupt but clearly unable to stand the suspense.

"Um... yes.." There was a long silence. For some reason this was hard to actually outright _say_. Dang it. She had made such a big deal about Tiff shutting up and now, her heart throbbing painfully with excitement and regret and joy and fear and far too many feelings, it was so hard to say the words.

"So is... is Prowl?"

"Yes... Yes Tiff... he is."

"Oh... my... Gosh." Tiff said slowly. Then. "OH MY GOSH! THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE! THE WEIRD NAME, Not seeing him in the drivers' seat! Oh my gosh girl oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh! OHMYGOSH!" There was another silence. "Is he hot?"

"Oh my gosh Tiff. Really? You find out the car that is stalking me is an alien carbot and that is the first thing you think of?"

"Well is he?" Tiff asked with a suggestive tone that made her blush.

"Well I don't know. I didn't get to see him, well more than I've seen before. Just his car form."

"Hm... and he is a pretty slick car isn't he? How did you describe him? Trim, sleek, black and white, elegant shape, austere colors, stylish race car build?" And somehow Tiff managed to make it sound incredibly risque, making her own words sound as if she was describing something indecent instead of just a car.

"Tiff!"

"Hm... I can hear you blushing. You are too easy girl, too easy. He must be pretty darn hot though, if he looks that good as a car."

"Oh come on Tiff. You've seen them they... wait, why am I even arguing this with you? They are giant flipping robots. What does it matter? Its not like... like..."

"Oh I see how it is." Tiff said voice rife with disapproval. "You are one of those non-believers, who thinks that just because they are made of metal they don't have _feelings_. I thought better of you."

And that hurt. "No Tiff, its not like that. Dang it. I _know_  they have feelings." She blushed a bit. "At least I know Prowl does, but I can only assume that the others do too. They are people just like us. Just... made of different stuff. Same on the inside."

"Oh." Relief and maybe smugness? "I am so glad you can confirm that for me. I mean, I know I've always been pretty silly, I tend to exaggerate and go after the things that... aren't always completely feasible."

"What? Tiff are you alright? Are you admitting that you aren't always completely reasonable in the things you say?" She couldn't help but tease back. "Are you _sick_? Should I call a _doctor_?"

"Oh shut up, you are going to kill the moment." Tiff snapped back, but without ire, just amused embarrassed annoyance. "But really. I'm... I'm glad to have it confirmed that they really are people like us. I mean, not _like us_  like us, there is that whole, made out of metal, thing, but other than that, just like us. It... it is comforting to know that the ones looking after us are people not dumb unfeeling machines.... Not that _I_  ever thought they might be. I am a _true_  believer. But there are others, others that doubted. But now I know. And I'm gonna tell everyone."

"Oh, please don't tell them about Prowl, I'm not sure I'm ready for anyone to know just yet."

"Don't worry, just about the feelings thing, that they are people. And on not letting anyone know about Prowl just yet..." Tiff's voice suddenly dropped back into its deep dangerously teasing tone. "Does that include Grrrreeeeeg?" She asked drawing his name out long. "Is this a sign that all is not right on your cloud nine or that you are too embarrassed to tell Greg about your hot little hunk'a police racecar?"

"Tiff!"

"Did you get _inside_  him?"

"Tiff! Don't make it sound dirty!"

"So you _did_. Mmmmm. Sounds so... tasty."

"Tiff you are a pervert."

"And you are too easily embarrassed. So tell me, how did you find him? Did you get too close to the fight and he saved you? Hm?"

"Actually... I sort of saved him?"

"Oooooo! Even better. Now he owes you."

"Don't be silly Tiff. He doesn't owe me anything, anyone would have done the same and besides, he saved me first, that night in the rain."

"Oh yes, that beautiful night in the rain. It's a shame there isn't a real agent Prowl but hot bot Prowl works too." Tiff said laughing.

"Oh Tiff. But it was bad."

"Bad in what way?" Tiff asked, suddenly serious, sensing how upset her friend was. "What happened?"

"He was hurt. I saved him, part of this building nearly collapsed on him, he was just badly hurt. He looked like he had run into a brick wall. Repeatedly. And just dented and banged up all over, and this huge hole in his door. And he _hurt_  Tiff. He hurt." It hurt just to talk of it, remembering the pain in his voice.

"Oh sweetheart. He's okay isn't he?"

"Oh Tiff, I don't know. I don't know." She started sobbing, unable to help it. Prowl, he had been so badly hurt and she didn't know if he was okay. The whole story tumbled out as she sobbed. "He was so sweet and kind and... and kinda cute too... trying to wiggle his door and keep me from getting in, and being so worried and stuff. I mean, the idiot didn't even know what I meant when I thought I was losing him and I told him to hold on. He is totally clueless for someone who is apparently pretty smart. Or maybe he isn't, I don't know. He just seems like one of those shy smart guys. Dang it. And I don't know if he is _okay_  Tiff. What if the Decievidroids got him? Oh Tiff what do I do?"

"Oh sweetheart, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay."

"Oh Tiff I'm so scared."

"He'll be alright. If I've learned anything these last nine months since the robots came here it's that they are toughies, and they look after their own. Even if the bad 'uns got him they'll get him back. He'll be okay. He will be okay."

But even though she wanted to believe it, even after Tiff finally hung up half an hour later, she still felt that same knot of worry choking her throat. Talking with Tiff had made her feel better, it really had. But she had a feeling the worry wouldn't go away completely until she saw Prowl, alive and well, with her own two eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you spot the minibots in this chapter?
> 
> And our reader still hasn't quite gotten the Decepticon's name down yet


	11. Following

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We still don't know who got to Prowl first, the Autobots or Decepticons, but our reader has noticed she's gathered a whole set of new stalkers
> 
> The thing I most remember about Huffer from G1 was when Optimus Prime nearly died in a fight with Megatron and they made him change back into a semi and were going to tow him home. And then Huffer was there, and took Optimus Prime's trailer, pulling the whole thing all by himself. It took three or four bots to pull Optimus, and Huffer, who everyone looks down on, pulls the entire trailer by his minibot self. Huffer is a _beast_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1), who introduced me to the idea of Mini-bot paces and made me fall in love with all the mini-bots. Especially the first pace.  
> Their Pacemaker series (https://archiveofourown.org/series/324806) is really awesome. 
> 
> Late Chapter is late. I am sorry. But this week's will be on time, I am sure. (And you _did_ get two last week)

Huffer didn't particularly like Earth. It was wet, mostly covered in water, and everyone knew what happened to metal that got wet. Not Cybertronians of course, Transformers didn't rust. But other things did, and it just kept raining _all the time_. The first time he'd nearly had a spark attack. The displaced Cybertronians had been far from base or shelter of any kind, rushing back from a fight with the Decepticons when the clouds had begun to dump an endless torrent upon them. There had been a brief but intense panic, a couple of the more excitable Autobots actually crashing into each other, before they realized that the rain was of a PH that was basically harmless. And then everyone had had a big laugh about their panic and wondered about how strange this new world was before continuing on their way back home.

Huffer still hated the rain. Others had come to enjoy it during these last 'months' on this squishy brown and green world. But every time he saw the drops falling from the sky his plating clamped down tight and his vents stuttered and he heard the echos of the screams of the dying.

Huffer hated water. This squishy planet had far far too much of it. And yet it also, ironically, abounded in flame. It seemed almost everything on the entire planet was flammable, and the primitive people consistently built their homes and work places and all other manner of things out of the most flammable of materials. Every day he felt like he was just waiting for everything to spontaneously combust. Humans, he had decided, were rather insane. But then, Cybertron had been at war for, what was the calculation? Over nine million of their years. If that wasn't somewhat insane he didn't know what was.

As much as Huffer hated water and fire, he hated war even more. Though he would never speak the words aloud. That would have been too heavy a burden on his comrades, his family. He knew they all hated the endless war. It weighed on processors and sparks, dragging them down, inch by inch, day by day. And yet, now, here on this strange squishy planet full of fire and flood, things were lighter, less heavy, easier to bear. He should have hated earth, but instead all he could muster was a mild distaste.

Besides, for the first time in hundreds of vorns he was allowed to build again. War was not a time to build, but here, as visitors and protectors of humans, Optimus had asked that those who had skills in such things (and often all Autobots if things were bad enough) spend time helping humans rebuild what was destroyed by their battles and power struggles with the Decepticons.

Before the war Huffer had been an engineer, a builder. True the human's buildings were simplistic, made of inferior (and flammable) materials, and rather on the small side, but he was building again, his hands working to create instead of destroy. It was soothing, a healing thing, to work the nature of creation, watching things take form and grow day by day, beneath his hands, buildings rising, walls repaired, order rising out of the disorder. There was something beautiful in the natural progression of construction. Something that soothed the spark and expanded the mind. So no matter what else happened or went on on this dirty dusty wet flammable ball of mud, he couldn't really hate it here.

But this? This was rapidly becoming intolerable.

There was work to be done. Buildings and roads and walls being repaired, rebuilt, and he was stuck human watching. It wasn't even _important_ , no order from Prime or even Jazz, and while it _was_ true that part of the reason for that was that both were still deep in medical stasis, it was still very annoying to be doing something so distasteful just because Bumblebee was certain that 'Jazz would want it done'. Ugh. But Brawn had agreed and here Huffer was, following some stupid human when he could be _building_   _things_ instead.

Where was the scrawny thing anyway? Was it still in that weird building it had gone into? Shoot. Brawn would be so annoyed if Huffer lost track of the stupid thing. Seriously, if they wanted to keep track of the stupid thing they should just jump it and tag it. Humans hadn't invented micro-chipping yet, no one'd ever know. Far easier than following it around and just hoping you didn't lose track of it. But _noooo_. They didn't want to _scare_ the silly thing. Or even let it know it was being followed by Autobots. So stupid. It wasn't like they were Decepticons. But then again it might be a pain to explain their sudden interest in some insignificant human to the human leaders if the one they were following reported it and tried causing problems.

Seriously where was that human? If only all the humans didn't all look so alike. They were all the same basic shape with variations being so gradual, and their colors were so few, and again changed from one shade to the next so gradually it was hard to easily define or differentiate. The 'hair' phenomena was at least a little helpful but again, so few colors, but at least more variation. But then it would _change_ , just like the humans stupid _clothes_. Cybertronians were all pretty distinctive, frame type and modifications, and then paint jobs that they tended to remain pretty faithful to. Especially in a group as mixed of origin and frametype as the Autobots here on earth everyone was instantly identifiable, whereas humans were all so pit blasted similar in shape and size and look, and seemed to take _pleasure_ in looking as different as possible from one day to the next, that subgroup, the other frame type, what did they call it? Females? They _especially_ were perpetrators of the endless changes with the other frame type, males, being more consistent in the shape and coloring of their 'clothes'. Some even had an almost Cybertronian loyalty to their look and luckily Sparkplug and Spike were some of those. Huffer could always recognize them because of that.

Abruptly he recognized another human. It was the one he had been tailing all day, the clothing shape and colors matching those he had rescanned and recommitted to memory earlier that day when he had started his shift watching the human.

It was coming straight for him, silent and focused.

Oh Pit no.

Huffer threw himself into reverse, running backward around the corner as the creature broke into a sudden run, yelling and screaming and flailing its scrawny little arms at him. Rationally he shouldn't be scared but he knew the feel of being hunted and that intense expression on the little creature's face was unmistakable. As it scrabbled around the corner Huffer had already flipped around, throwing himself into drive. For a moment he hesitated, the creature was yelling about Autobots and to wait, and for a second he _almost_ did. But they were supposed to be keeping their surveillance on the 'down-low' and if the creature caught him it would touch him with those squishy hands covered in the perpetually leaking oily human skin.

His tires squealed as he peeled out, launching himself along the side street at a speed no small short legged, non-transforming human could match, and joining the main road at the other side dexterously. He activated his Comm. {Brawn. I don't care what you say, I am done watching that human. I am going back to the downtown construction sites and doing some _real_ work. If you want the stupid human watched do it yourself or get someone else to.}

{Huffer? What happened?} His pace-leader replied, voice confused and slightly strained over the link. He was probably holding something heavy. Working the construction while Huffer was taking his shift human watching. He could feel a pang of jealousy at the thought, but it was a moot point, he was going back to the construction sites anyway and their whole pace tended to work construction whenever there was an opportunity.

{Brawn, you aren't pushing yourself too hard are you? Ratchet says you aren't supposed to lift anything heavier than 15 megaunits yet.} Huffer asked suspiciously, Brawn was stubborn at the best of times, and often almost reckless when it came to his own health. True the mech was tougher than nails but everyone had their limits and Brawn had lost an arm in that last battle (it had been re-attached of course but re-integration took time). Besides, it was also a good way to deflect his pace-leader's question.

{Oh don't fuss, I'm being careful.} He could almost hear his pace-leader sigh. {Send me your coordinates, I'll take the rest of your shift. We don't want to lose the human.}

{Remind me why we care again?}

{She found Prowl when we couldn't. 'Sides, 'member how upset Jazz was? If nothing else he'll want to have a talk to her when he wakes up.}

{I do hope this isn't just another of Bumblebee's plots to recruit more humans. We have enough of them running around the Ark and getting underfoot as it is.}

Brawn actually laughed at that and Huffer felt his spark ease a bit at the sound. {Don't be such a grouch. Besides, we only keep humans around that are actually useful and she doesn't seem to be a mechanic or a scientist like the others.}

{Thank Primus for small miracles.} Huffer grumbled, glad to hear Brawn laughing again before the link was severed.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

Dang it! That stupid orange mini-semi escaped. She was absolutely certain that it had been an Autobot, even if it hadn't stopped and allowed her to talk to it/him (were they all hims? Did giant machines even have genders? But being called an 'it' was probably offensive, after all they _were_  people). The red decal on its door had certainly _looked_  like the Autobot sigil.

She let out a sigh and ran a hand through her hair. It had been almost a week since Prowl had been stolen from her garage. And she couldn't help but think _stolen_  because she had no way of knowing _who_  had done it. She wanted to believe it was the Autobots but she hadn't been able to contact any of them, even being stopped from approaching those that were apparently helping reconstruction of downtown. But if it hadn't been the Autobots, wouldn't they be trying to contact _her_?

And then she'd noticed that some funny looking cars had been following her. And now she was _certain_  they were Autobots. But why had the Autobot _run away_? It was so... so.. what? Frustrating? Not strong enough. Enraging? that was too strong. She just felt like she was going crazy because the sensible thing was to pick up the pieces of her life and move forward and trust that the giant alien robots would take care of themselves. And she had been looking for a new job. Her old one wouldn't be back for months as they rebuilt downtown and she wasn't guaranteed to be re-hired, and even if she had beenshe still needed to eat in the mean time and there was rent to be paid and _all she could think about_  was a broken down crumpled sad little black and white police car looking so small and broken in her garage and _she had failed him_.

UGH!

She was going to go completely mad if she didn't get answers, and get them soon. It was hard enough going to job interviews and appearing normal, and there were so so many people who were struggling with temporary jobs until everything was rebuilt again, lots of them were going to help with the reconstruction but they were less likely to accept a female for that. And she needed to get some groceries but there was so little in her bank account, and how far was she going to have to make it stretch? And what had happened to Prowl? Was he okay? Was he even alive? Even if it had been the Decieveidroids they wouldn't kill him right? He'd be more valuable as a hostage, right?

And the stupid orange semi cab Autobot had _run away_  from her. She was going to go nuts. Absolutely nuts.

She stomped down the sidewalk, then back again, and again. It was not a good use of her energy, she still had other places to go to and seek employment and without a car she had to go everywhere on foot. And as the season was progressing it was getting colder and colder. She had been carefully watching the news to find out the weather, it had been clear so far, and had cried her eyes out twice because she knew if it rained there was no Prowl to save her if she started to freeze.

Maybe... maybe that was why the other Autobots were following her? Had Prowl sent them watch after her? Make sure she was safe while he was too badly hurt to?

Oh she wanted to believe that, but she remembered seeing them from the first, and she was pretty sure he hadn't been well enough to ask such a thing when he'd been spirited away. Ugh. She wanted him to be okay. And she wanted to _know_  he was okay. She missed him, and that had to be mostly just because the worry was eating her alive, eating her inside out. It wasn't as if she _knew_  him. They'd hardly spoken once, only met twice and each time one of them had been far too close to death. They were hardly acquaintances.

And yet...

Dang it. He was a giant alien car robot. He was busy fighting in an intergalactic war, he didn't have time to befriend or baby-sit some idiot human girl. _But Bumblebee does doesn't he?_  Some traitorous part of her mind whispered and she felt her heart clench unpleasantly. It was silly and irrational. They weren't friends, they weren't connected, they didn't have a relationship.

Even if he _had_  been stalking her.

He did have some sort of _feelings_  for her. But how did that even work? What sort of feelings? He was a car robot, how could she know for certain what his motivations were? Maybe it was some sort of car thing? Human cars liked 'sleeping' in garages so she had wondered if alien car robots did. Did alien car robots like being driven? No. She remembered with sudden vividness how he had freaked out at the idea. How much it had upset him. So then he wasn't stalking her in some strange alien 'I'm seeking my one true driver' thing.

So then was it the same sort of reason that a male human would follow a female human around?

And that was an odd thought. She felt sort of like Tiff for even thinking it. And yet... somehow it seemed to fit. But just as much the idea seemed so foreign and strange, especially since all she had ever seen was him as a cop car. Perhaps if she had seen him in his robot man form it would be easier for her mind to comprehend. But then again, maybe she didn't _want_  to think along those lines.

Ugh. All these thoughts were useless. It wasn't as if she could arrive at any kind of truth by rolling them around in her head. More information was needed. And how was it important in her life? It had been chance that had brought Prowl into her life the first time, and a miracle (or disaster, downtown was a mess) the second time. It wasn't everyday your hometown got wrecked by giant alien robots. Having that happen a second time? Never. It was all so silly. She wasn't ever likely to see Prowl ever again, she needed to forget and move forward. Even if he was alive he wasn't going to show up in her life again. Or was he? He would at least come back once to let her know he was okay right? Would he keep stalking her? Or had her calling him out on it embarrassed him to the point where he would never do it again? Where she would never again catch a glimpse of black and white vanishing around a corner?

UGH!

"Dang it Prowl!" She yelled, just for the satisfaction of saying something out loud. And it helped, a little, that outburst of emotion. The knots in her chest loosened and the knots in her mind seemed to clear a bit. Pacing and yelling and worrying weren't going to help anyone or anything. She was just going to have to wait until she caught sight of another Autobot. Until then, she had a couple more places to try to get hired today.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

It was cold, but not raining at least. She had a couple more places to go, but she couldn't make herself do it and had headed home instead. Besides, she hadn't caught sight of the orange mini semi again. But she had seen the green jeep truck thing again. It looked less beat up each day and as she casually stretched, glancing around she managed to catch sight of it half a block behind her.

Yes! It _was_  an Autobot! The same red sigil that they all wore. But how to lure him closer? She still wasn't sure how she had managed to get so close to the other before he had seemed to realize she was coming and this wasn't a crowded street, it was residential near her home, and late enough kids were inside for dinner not out playing. This time she was going to catch the sneaky little Autobot (little being very metaphorical, there is nothing little about a car vs a human).

 _And what exactly are you going to do? Jump on him?_  An internal voice asked.

Yes. Yes she was.

But seriously, what else could she do? And they fought and pounded on other giant robots all the time, surely having a barely adult human jump on top of their hood or roof (when they weren't horribly damaged at least) wouldn't hurt them. She couldn't say she had been scoping out the various weird cars that had been following her, her glimpses had been too few and brief, and even now she could only confirm that three were actually Autobots (or had the red Symbol anyway, or a red symbol). The others might just be weird cars from around town. Cars were cars, and unless you caught them transforming or with their military symbols, they weren't easily distinguishable from normal cars.

How could she get this one to get a bit closer? A human couldn't outrun a car, but if she caught him by surprise, just got a little closer to him before he figured it out like the one earlier...

Maybe if she darted down a side street? They had been following her, would he get closer if she went down a street she hadn't ever before? She was crossing a road near her small apartment when she suddenly darted to one side, diving down the small cross-street like she was being pursued. It was a crappy plan but better than nothing. There was a soft roar of an engine from the road she had just left. Great. There, a bush. She ducked behind it quickly and waited.

Wait, was she really hiding in someone's bush? This was pretty ridiculous. How on earth had she gotten into this mess? Each step had seemed so logical and reasonable at the time. Was this how people went insane? She really needed to get more sleep. But once she cornered this Autobot and found out about Prowl that would be easy right? The worry that was eating her up would finally be put to rest. One way or another (because she was too blasted reasonable to think there was no way it had been the Deceptibots who had gotten Prowl. Sometimes she wished she was like Tiff and could just ignore unpleasant possibilities her mind fed her).

There, the green truck pausing at the end of the road. But not turning onto the cross street. From this angle, crouched in a bush peering through branches and leaves, she couldn't see the Autobot symbol on his hood but it was easy to see the total lack of driver. Definitely an Autobot then. None of the badbots turned into cars after all. Right? No, she had seen red before, the Decevicon's symbol was purple. What was he doing though? He had just stopped, in the middle of the road. Was he looking for her? She wished he had some sort of face, or something, to be able to tell what he was looking at. A spotlight would have been nice, and she almost gave a nervous giggle at the thought.

 _Come on, just a little closer._  She urged, trying to beam psychic mind rays at him and coax him to come down the little road so she could spring out and jump him.

The truck's engine hummed and it drove off.

It _drove_  off.

"AND WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING!?!" She roared leaping out of the bush and taking up pursuit. How dare he just run off like that? After all this? who did he think he was? He and his weirdo little friends, and even Prowl himself, had been following her around, watching her and waiting, messing around in her life, and now he was just going to ditch? Heck no! "DON'T YOU DRIVE AWAY FROM ME!!" She was gaining on him, "GET BACK HERE YOU LOUSY AUTOBOT!" She yelled shaking a fist, adrenaline pumping through her tired body.

What was the sound? Was he... laughing at her? And she was catching up. It was a slow road but still. And there were people staring out windows at her. Great, now she was 'that crazy lady who runs down the street yelling at cars'. Oh man, she was just about to die of embarrassment.

"Giving up so soon little one?" Came a deep booming voice from the green truck.

Well she had already embarrassed herself, she focused again on the green truck. "Not a chance! You jerks have been tailing me for a week now and I _want_  answers!" Again the green truck laughed infuriatingly and sped up. Dang it. She forced her tired legs back into a run. "Dang it! That's not fair! I've been walking all day!" What was she going to do? Jump onto his back bumper while he was moving and try to grab onto his roof-rack and not fall off? This was insane. But she was gaining at least. "I don't know who you are but you are a jerk." She yelled, half stumbling as she lunged and jumped, scrabbling as the back of the vehicle and then falling forward to face-plant on the asphalt.

Except, mercifully, she didn't hit the ground. The truck thing stopped almost immediately and she simply fell against it. And then metal was shifting and she was half falling again only to have thick hard flatish surfaces under her, pushing her upward, helping her get back onto and stabilized on her feet. She blinked, looking down and seeing grey metal in the form of thick forearms and surprisingly human shaped hands. She blinked again, momentarily entranced. She'd seen some of the beginnings of robots and computers that humans had begun craft. They weren't anything like this. It would have looked like a metallic sculpture except the seams and narrow gaps that gave the hands articulation. It was art, living art, and she marveled as the digits moved, smooth motions accompanied by tiny swish and hiss of internal components.

Again the bot was laughing in that deep rumbling confident voice. "Like what you see?" And she realized she was running her hands, they seemed so small in the hands of this metal giant, along the palm, stroking at the thick curved powerful fingers.

She blushed, head snapping up to look up into glowing blue eyes set in a silvery face, feeling as if she had been caught doing something inappropriate. Then again, she had been exploring his hands with her own. It wasn't as if she was groping him, but she didn't know anything about their culture, hands might be as off-limits as a human's butt. Protest and bristle or honest and admire? Honesty she decided. "I've never really been so close to any of you in robot form. I... Your hands are amazing. Human science isn't even close do making anything like this."

The bot chuckled and gave her a smile. Goodness. How did a metal face emote so freely? You'd think it was something grown not forged, something made of supple materials like a human's rather than something so hard and stiff as metal. "Why thank you. Think how incredible your people seem to us. So small and flimsy, made of water and dirt, and yet still the same as us in many ways." And there was warmth and gentleness in his slightly electronic voice. It was strange to look up at this metal giant, huge and powerful looming over her, able to crush her in a moment, and be aware of how much a _person_  it was (she didn't like to use the word 'human' since it didn't quite fit and saying that the bots were 'human' seemed intolerably arrogant, as if being a person was something defined by humanity). And a good kind person at that. How could anyone think they were just simple machines? She doubted anyone could stand before one of them like this, to touch and hear, and think they were anything other than what they were, people of a different form.

And then she remembered _why_  she was standing in the middle of the road near her home looking up at this orange and green Autobot. She punched him in the arm, carefully, she didn't want to seriously injure her hand. "You jerk! You and the others have been following me for almost a week now. In all that time _surely_  you realized that I was _trying_  to make contact with you Autojerks." She scolded.

And again he laughed, a deep powerful thing that made it hard to be angry with him. "Yes yes, I suppose so, but we didn't want to frighten you."

"So you decided to just stalk me instead? You didn't think being followed around wouldn't frighten me?"

He considered that and shrugged with careless affability, as if saying 'whatever, not my plan', that laugh still in those glowing lights that seemed to serve as eyes. "Didn't really think of that. So then, what is it you wanted?"

"Prowl!"

The robot's face shifted, expression changed, confused. "What?"

"Prowl!" She barked, and reached up as far as she could to poke him in the center of his chest (it helped that he was still bending over, having not let go from having helped stabilize her when she nearly ate the road). "Where is he! You guys got him right? Is he alright? I didn't know! You stole him in the middle of the night and he was just gone! Ripped my garage door into bits! That's really rude you know? You could have just knocked, I would have opened it up, all you had to do was ask! It was you right? You not the Decevidroids right? He is going to be alright isn't he? Where is Prowl!" The words kept tumbling out, even though she had tried to stay calm and sane sounding. And then suddenly they were gone and she was trying not to cry, eyes prickling, heart aching, almost glaring up at the bot in desperation and hope.

"Whoa whoa, calm down. Yes it was us. We picked Prowl up. It was Hoist and Grapple really, I wasn't personally involved. He... he isn't doing well. He is a mess but Ratchet, that's our medic, he is miracle worker. Don't you worry little one. Prowl will be fine." He said and gave her what he probably thought was a couple very light pats on the shoulder. It kind of stung, but it still was sort of comforting. Just not nearly so much as his words. She felt the knot of stress inside her unraveling.

"He's Okay?"

The bot heaved a bit of a sigh. "No, I told you, he's a mess." He explained patiently. It seemed this bot tended toward the strictly accurate. "But he _will_  be okay. He is in good hands little human."

She hesitated, she was feeling so much better, so much of the pain soothed away, but it wasn't enough. And yet... could she really ask what it was she wanted? Well she had come this far, running down the road chasing cars and yelling at them. After that being nervous to ask a simple question seemed silly. "I want to see him." Shoot. She meant to ask but it had come out as a _demand_.

The Bot tilted his head slightly and smiled a bit. "Well you are a bold one, but you'd proved that already. Did you try running down Huffer too earlier? That why he left in such a hurry?"

She blushed. "If Huffer is the orange one who looks a bit like a half sized semi truck with tall silver turrets then yes. I... It's been a hard week, and you all _were_  avoiding me." She said then tightened her grip on one of his hands. "You _are_  going to take me to see him right? I... I'd feel much better to see him for myself."

The bot chuckled. "No problem little one." he said, pulling away and transforming. Transforming was even more amazing in person than she ever could have expected. All that metal shifting and rearranging, plates of metal, large and small coming apart then back together again, what had been gaps as a robot becoming almost seamless as a vehicle. Before he had quite finished she was already moving, seized by the determination to find, to see Prowl alive and being taken care of by his people. The passenger door popped open just in front of her and she climbed in, buckling in as the door closed itself. "All buckled in? Alright, lets go then." He said and started off.

This truck was driving itself. Right there, the steering wheel turning side to side, the pedals moving on their own, like one of those player pianos. It was... unsettling. Technically she had been through the same before with Prowl, but then she hadn't _known_ there wasn't a driver, and had been asleep most the time anyway. Still, it was fascinating. "So then, I've met Prowl, and the orange guy from earlier was Huffer, so what's your name?" She asked, a faint half smile on her lips. Prowl was safe, and soon she would be able to see as much herself. And now, her life was suddenly full of transforming robots.

This was more than she ever could have dreamed.


	12. To The Ark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bluestreak being ominous. He is not the logical brother and his solution to this problem is a bad one. Hopefully he figures that out _before_ anyone gets hurt.  
>  There are reasons, pretty good ones, behind what he does, secrets yet to be revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uninspired chapter is uninspired.  
> And then went somewhere I didn't expect.  
> Perhaps the reader will be getting a job?  
> Why must all the chapters mock me?

It was very... orange. It was near sunset now but she was still overwhelmed by the sheer... orangeness of it all. "Is orange you guys' favorite color or something? I mean, you are orange, Huffer is orange, and I haven't really seen anyone else but that is a looooooot of orange on your base." She paused a moment. "Do you guys ever go blind from the glare?" She asked with a bit of a grin and, predictably, Brawn laughed.

"I wouldn't say it is our favorite, that is too broad a generalization for how many mechs we got here. I do like orange though, always thought it a nice color." The green truck replied, voice seeming to come from the steering wheel where his Autobot sigil could be clearly seen. "It is called the Ark."

"So, the Ark is your headquarters, Optimal-"

"Optimus." He corrected patiently.

"Opti _mus_  Prime is your leader. You, Huffer, Bumblebee and three others are a family group with you as the leader and called mini-bots by the others. Jazz is third in command and still stuck in medbay, but he wants to meet me? Ratchet is your medic and grouchy but is really good at what he does. And Prowl is second in command, head of tactics and was still, what did you say? 'In stasis' when you left base this morning?"

"Good job. You are learning little one." He said with good humor. Brawn had spent a lot of the drive over trying to tell her about the different robots she was likely to meet, and giving her a brief explanation of what things were like on the Ark. It seemed rather confusing, especially since she was so excited (and nervous) to see Prowl (and, let's face it, badly sleep deprived) she had trouble concentrating. Brawn had spent almost half the drive trying to explain his relationship with the other mini-bots. In the end, after explaining a bunch of concepts to each other, they had settled on the term 'family group', as the most accurate, though he explained that Transformers (which was apparently what all the alien robots were called regardless of faction?) didn't have families in the human sense since they were 'forged' instead of born.

"So why does Jazz want to see me?"

"Curiosity mainly, but also since Optimus Prime is still out, he is the Autobot leader you'll be meeting."

"So, it is more that since I am visiting I need to see him because he's in charge right now?"

"Well he's also curious about the human who found Prowl. After all, you found him when our people didn't and made sure he was alright until we could come pick him up." Brawn replied, driving in through the strange opening that led into the mountain. It was just as orange inside as it was outside. The vehicle came to a stop and the door opened suddenly.

"Well, Prowl helped me out once before, its not like I coulda _not_  helped." She said, feeling a bit embarrassed as she carefully unbuckled and got out. "I'm not really all that interesting I swear, just at the right place at the right time." She said looking over and watching as the green vehicle shifted into a stout tall robot man.

Brawn looked down at her an interesting expression on his face. "Prowl's helped you before?" He asked, glowing blue eyes burning with curiosity. "I didn't know you'd met him before. Is that why you were so upset?"

She looked away, blushing. "A bit. I mean, he was hurt and needed help, anyone would have done the same. But, I don't know. It was scarier since I'd met him before and he was just so bad hurt this time. Like, I knew how he normally sounded, so it was that much worse when he sounded so... so awful."

"Well, he will be alright. Come on." Brawn jerked his head down the corridor briefly then started walking.

"So, do I get to see Prowl now? Or do I have to check in with Jazz first?" Dang the robot walked quick. Or not quickly, he just had such _long legs_. And he was one of the _smaller_ ones? How big were the others? I mean, it was one thing to see them on TV and another to be craning your neck up to look at their faces. Giant clomping metal robots. Still, pretty darn awesome.

Brawn shrugged, another gesture that they shared in common with humans. She couldn't help but wonder how many were natural and how many they had learned since arriving and had adopted to ease communication with humans. "They are both in medbay, but Jazz is out on the main floor so we'll probably get flagged down by him first."

She tried not to let her disappointment show. But hey, she was actually here, at the Autobot's secret base. And she was going to see Prowl and then she'd know that he was going to be okay. How many people get to walk in an alien space ship? This was pretty amazing. "So... I've heard that Jazz is pretty friendly?" She asked cautiously. She almost felt like she was going to a job interview. What if Jazz didn't like her? Would he send her away without letting her see Prowl? There weren't a lot of other bots in the halls, apparently most were still either injured in medbay or recovering and resting in their rooms right now. Occasionally she caught glances of one or another peering out at her from side corridors, huge and brightly colored, but holding back for now, as if worried about overwhelming her. She was kinda glad. As fun as this was, it _was_  overwhelming, and she wasn't sure how well she could handle it if she was suddenly swarmed by giant robots even bigger than Brawn.

"Don't worry. Jazz is great. Everyone loves Jazz." Brawn assured her, giving her shoulder a bit of a pat that nearly knocked her to the floor. Ow. These guys were _strong_.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

Bluestreak didn't believe in love at first sight. Not really. No matter how adorably sappy human dramas were. No matter how fun or romantic an idea it seemed, he did not believe in it. That was until his optics fell on a certain human femme and he felt his spark try to explode _and_  implode at the same time. For a single brief moment his entire frame locked up and he suddenly had a face to go with the strange feelings he'd been having. Then he did the only thing that seemed sensible at the moment. He turned right around and went swiftly (He wasn't running, not really, just walking _really_  fast, he'd never run from a _human_  of all things, especially not a cute kind sweet beautiful one like that, nope, not running _at all_ ) back down the corridor he'd come from.

Once he had turned another corner and was certain neither the human nor Brawn was coming after him Bluestreak leaned back against one wall and let himself slide down it (ignoring the damage that did to his door wings) until he was seated on the floor. Holy Primus that human. But why a human of all things? It wasn't as if there weren't enough normal, decent, awesome mechanisms around for them to fall in love with. Why did it have to be a _human_? Primus she was lovely, and so tiny, so petite as the humans said. Delicate and flawless and Primus he was glad he hadn't caught more than the slightest glimpse or he wouldn't be able to _think at all_  through the swarming thoughts and emotion.

Primus, had Prowl really fallen in love with a human? But why else would this new human be here? Why else would Prowl have finally started to stabilize emotionally again? Why else would _he_  be feeling the way he was?

No. He couldn't let Prowl have her. But he couldn't let _her_  have Prowl either.

All these endless vorns and he had _finally_  built up a relationship with Prowl again. And now she was going to ruin it all. Jazz was bad enough, but the saboteur was an unavoidable complication. And as much as Bluestreak hated to admit it, the mech was good for Prowl. Especially since Prowl would not rely on him, his own brother, like he should. But it had been growing, Cybertronians were a long lived and patient race, and they even had some good witty back and forth again. Being on earth had started to help. Until now. This puny adorable little human had almost killed Prowl, though she didn't know it, and was stealing his very spark. Bluestreak hated her for it. Even as he marveled at how beautiful she was. No wonder Prowl had fallen for her. Then again, why would Prowl fall for someone, much less a human, based on appearance alone? There was more to this than met the optic sensors, and he _would_  get to the bottom of it.

Bluestreak opened a comm line to the mini-bot. {Hey Brawn, who is that human you've got with you?} He asked in his usual chirpy voice though his expression was anything but.

{Oh it's the human femme that found Prowl. You want to come meet her? She's pretty nice and clever too.}

Oh _really?_  {No thanks.} He replied, optics gleaming. {I'm feeling a bit shy today, I think. Tell me how it goes alright? Maybe later? I mean to meet her, but also to talk about it if I don't? If that's alright.} Bluestreak was no tactical model like Prowl, but even _he_ knew how prohibitively improbable it was that the _one time_ his brother was too badly damaged to finish a fight and vanished, the human he liked just _happened_  to be the one to find him. Bluestreak narrowed his optics. Something was _up_. He wasn't quite the sort to say that Prowl had purposely snuck off to visit his human lover (he knew Prowl far too well to think _that_ ) but it was obvious that _something_  was up.

Bluestreak headed further into the Ark. It was time to pay a visit to Smokescreen, see if he could get in on the betting before anyone else figured out who Prowl's mysterious crush was.

And then he was going to steal Prowl's human. Before his brother could fully bond to her or whatever. Maybe that would finally force his hard-helmed brother to see reason, get through to the tight-afted rule-obsessed insensitive fool. Or maybe it was just that he was so intensely jealous? Both of the little femme for the relationship she may already have with his brother that he could not match, and of the thought of Prowl having her all to himself, or even just the thought of having to share her existence with another. Stupid hard-headed Prowl. Didn't he feel it? Bluestreak did. Every orn, every day, the ache where his brother should be, and now this stupid human was trying to come between them. Not trying, she didn't seem the type to _try_ such an awful thing, but still succeeding anyway. The only sensible solution was to steal her first. Right? And then they could finally get things fixed, and right, and she'd be way happier with him anyway. Prowl hadn't the slightest clue how to deal with his emotions. The last few months of watching the idiot slowly dying from within was proof enough of that. So he would make it right, save them both from themselves, and have the sweet little human femme all to himself.

This was a _great_  idea.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

The medbay was large, but then everything in this ship was positively huge. She felt like a doll walking around in a human's world. "Brawn," A huge white and red robot snapped as they came in, one she felt she recognized from TV. "What are you doing here? I already released Windcharger this morning, can't you see I'm busy?"

"Easy mate, they're with me." Came a cheerful accented voice and both the angry mostly white robot and Brawn looked over toward the voice. Immediately she recognized Jazz, the 'black and white one' from TV. Though he looked a bit of a mess, something was definitely wrong with his legs, and he was lying on a giant version of a medical bed.

The red and white one muttered as Brawn waved and headed over toward the damaged robot. But she paused a moment, looking around at the several damaged bots that were sitting or 'sleeping' on metal slabs or medical beds, dented up and tired looking but not so horribly mangled as she had feared. Not after seeing how Prowl had looked as a car. "And what are you looking at?" A voice from high above her head demanded and she looked up at the red and white Autobot.

"Are you Ratchet?" She asked and he did a small double take and smiled faintly.

"Yes. And who might you be?" He asked in a much gentler voice.

She gave him her name. "I'm the one who found Prowl. How is he? I know he was bad off but Brawn assures me you are the best as far as doctors go for your people." She said, trying not to sound as worried as she had been earlier. She didn't actually feel as upset as before. Seeing all the robots lying about injured but not half so bad off as Prowl when she'd last seen him gave her confidence. If he'd had far more patients than this to start with and the ones still here looked this good then Prowl couldn't be too bad off right?

"Well, I wouldn't say best, but I'm up there." The grouchy doctor said, sounding embarrassed. "How did you find him anyway?" He asked curiously, and were it not for the fact that he was about twenty feet tall she'd feel like she was talking to a normal person.

"He didn't tell you?"

"He hasn't woken up since he arrived."

She felt like the pit of her stomach dropped out. "Wh-what?" She asked, voice sounding weak even to her own ears.

"Don't freak out. That is normal. He was unconscious when he arrived and I put him immediately into medical stasis until around noon yesterday. He is still sleeping pretty deep, he has better control of his autonomous systems than most and the glitch thinks it is more _logical_ to sleep deeper and get the self repair done faster rather than coming up and letting us know he is still in there." He groused but she sensed there was something else he wasn't saying.

"What is going on?" She asked, frowning up at him and, for good measure, crossing her arms at him.

The medic glowered back down at her. "He was sick before the battle."

"What! Is that why he was looking so grey lately?"

"Lately?" The metal doctor actually startled, then looked at her suspiciously. "What do you mean lately? How'd _you_ notice he was turning grey?"

Okay, now it was pretty obvious that Prowl stalking her wasn't common knowledge. "I've... seen him about in my town time to time." Ratchet continued to glower. "He's a car. Cars drive around." She said, doing her best not to sound defensive.

"You mean... Prowl has been... stalking you?" Came a lilting voice. That was Jazz again, and the bot began laughing. "Oh man, really?"

She directed a glower at the bot. "I only saw him once or twice for sure." If Prowl hadn't told them, there was a reason, but she'd already told Brawn she'd met Prowl before. "I got myself into trouble one night and he made sure I got home alright. I think he just wanted to check I hadn't done something stupid and died." She gave an annoyed shrug. "I just though his paint looked less, ya know... contrasting. And then I saw him after the battle."

"So how _did_  you find him?" Jazz asked, he looked as if he wanted to get up and walk over but couldn't with his damaged legs. "An' come ov'r here so I don't hafta yell."

She looked up at Ratchet who shrugged and reluctantly went over closer to where Jazz was sitting stretched out. "He was parked under part of a collapsing parking garage. I was looking for my car when I found him." She said simply. "I wasn't even sure he was one of you guys until that day."

"Oh what? you just thought he was some police car that drove itself?"

"I never noticed him not having a driver. Like I said, barely saw him at all, the only time I know for sure it _was_ him not just another police car he was parked and you don't expect a parked car to have a driver."

Jazz snorted and Brawn gave her an odd look. "So you've never seen his root mode?" The orange mini-bot asked.

"You mean his robot form? Yeah. Haven't. Just him as a car."

"Ah can't believe by-the-book Prowler was stalkin' you." Jazz guffawed.

She bristled. "I don't think he was." She said annoyed, a total lie, but she didn't like having this guy she didn't know laughing at Prowl. Prowl was good and kind and sweet and dignified, and didn't deserve to be laughed at. "For one thing that implies he'd done it frequently, and I just caught sight of him once or twice. Only reason I'm here is because you and the Deceptidrones decided to trash the city I live in." She said scowling at him.

"Oi, not our fault. And they are called Decepticons darlin'." Jazz laughed.

"Hmph. Still, you wouldn't need me to be saving your bots if you weren't leaving them behind when they got hurt. What kind of friends are you anyway?" She scolded.

Jazz's smile was gone in an instant, his face going expressionless. "That wasn't my call. I was out cold when they left him behind." He said, voice calm and neutral, but she could see anxiety and tension in the details of his face. She wasn't sure what to say to that. Did it mean they were close friends and he was upset about what happened? Or just annoyed by her accusations? So she just stared at Jazz, who stared back at her from behind his visor, while Brawn stared at nothing and Ratchet was somewhere behind her out of sight and probably staring at whatever he was doing.

Awkward silence much?

"Can I see Prowl now?" She asked voice small. She had talked to Jazz just like they wanted now... All she wanted was to see Prowl and be sure he was okay.

And yet...

Words were pressing up against her throat, tangled worry and anger and memories of the discontent faces of humans who were struggling with the after effects of the battle.

"I... you are in charge right? Your bots were jerks to go ripping up my garage door. I don't care that it was the middle of the night they could have at least _tried_ to knock on the door and get my cooperation. It isn't like I was holding him hostage, and because you guys had to snatch him without a word or even leaving a note I've spent the last week worried _sick_ that your Decepticons got him. I don't _care_ if your leader is sick you have to behave better than that." She said, scolding again. She was still pretty miffed about the whole thing after all, and if this Jazz was in charge he was the best one to chew out about it. That was the purpose of a leader wasn't it? To be the one all the blame fell on and the complaints went to.

Except this was about more than just her.

She could see them now in her mind, the survivors. Some hopeful and pressing forward with cheer and steady determination to overcome while others were upset and afraid, dry tinder waiting to ignite. Protesters, just a few now, malcontents looking for someone blame, but their numbers could grow, looking at the Autobots helping in reconstruction with hate, the reason police blockades kept civilians so far from the Autobots who were helping, why she'd had such a hard time contacting the Autobots. Once things settled, people would be fine, they would try to make things go back to 'normal' as much as possible, but right now, while there was confusion and fear, there was danger.

"You are going to run into stupid humans being stupid if you don't be more polite. We humans are REALLY STUPID okay? And we tend to be easily fooled by the simple things, and if you just act polite you are way less likely to have us all decide to hate at you and crap okay? Stop laughing! It _isn't funny_ , this is serious stuff. I know you guys are the good guys and what not but some humans are _jerks_ and will try to call you out for the little things. We need you here, so don't make yourselves a target by pulling stupid stunts like this."

Jazz might be snorting up a storm but Brawn had crossed his arms and was looking at her intently "So... you are saying that even though we are helping rebuild downtown, the fact that Hoist and Grapple tore up your garage door is a problem."

"Yes it's a problem! If the media found out they'd be all like 'oh look, this proves that the Autobots don't _care_ ' and be all awful and then there would be all these people who would be like 'oh the Autobots don't _care_  and stomp all over the little guys like this girl, and she even tried to help them and they were mean to her anyway' and stupid crap like that and then they will be all against you over something stupid because they will focus on the exciting little 'feels' story instead of paying attention to the big stuff you are doing to help _everyone_." Heavens above, what was wrong with her? Why couldn't she shut up? Her face was burning.

"Look. I know you guys are trying to help but ya gotta be careful because humans, especially here in the US, are overly excitable and the news can be a terrible thing and there are already those who hate you because of the collateral damage and stuff and lots of people lost their jobs." Her eyes burned, tears prickling. " _I_  lost my job. And I don't... and... look... your work is important so just... walk lightly because humans are stupid and easily startled." And her landlady was mad and she only had so much money before it ran out and a lot of people had lost their jobs and businesses and she didn't want to complain about her own problems, especially not to these robots who didn't know her, who had their own problems and concerns and were fighting a blasted war for pity's sake, and she was just there whining about losing her job. But that didn't change that it was _hard_ losing your job and not knowing if you could get a new one in time. And she could see how so many others who had suffered as she had in her hometown would feel like this too, would be hurting and wanting someone to blame, and the Autobots were safe to blame because unlike the Decepticons they wouldn't step on you if you yelled rude things at them (like she just had to be honest) and she didn't want anything _bad_  to happen to the Autobots just because humans were stupid, and she didn't want Prowl or Brawn or Ratchet (who she'd barely met but seemed pretty nice too) to get hurt because humans were _stuuuupiiiid_.

For now the humans loved the Autobots, they were big giant awesome transforming robot superheroes. But if they lost the stars in their eyes and became bitter and jaded? What would happen to the Autobots then? And what would happen to the humans? This was _not_ a war the humans wanted to be involved in, or could protect themselves from.

Jazz and Brawn were looking at her intently, and she could feel the gazes of other robots from all around in the medbay. She felt so very small, head barely tall enough to see over the edge of their medical slabs and beds. A tiny doll in a world of metal giants, drab and plain among the color and flash, an ordinary human with an ordinary life standing among alien robots locked in epic battle with an ancient enemy that made all of humanity look like tiny children squabbling in a sandbox.

"I'm sorry." She said suddenly, realizing she was shaking. This was all so big and huge and she had been yelling at them and she could feel wetness on her cheeks, and she hadn't the slightest clue how to read their expressions. In fact, the way they would glance one to another, and faint tilts of heads and changes of expression, she realized they must be communicating with each other in a way she couldn't hear. What, were they telepaths too? Her skin prickled and she couldn't help but feel like she was standing trial.

"Ah, it's okay sweetspark." Jazz said suddenly, giving her a winning smile. Sweetspark? Was that supposed to be like sweetheart? She had a feeling it was a playful personality thing not real flirting. "Ya just surprised us, that's all." He exchanged a smirk with Brawn. "Seems you are a bit of a firecracker, in spite of your best efforts to pretend to be a sweet little doormat?" He offered sounding faintly puzzled.

She felt so tired all of a sudden. "Can I see Prowl now? I just... I want to see that he's okay so I don't have to worry anymore. I know it is silly but I'll feel so much better if I can just see it with my own eyes."

"Oh that's fine, I understand what you mean." Jazz's smile became gentle. "Ah felt the same way when they brought him back. Ratchet says he's gotten Prowl decent. Brawn, you mind escorting her?" Jazz nodded to the smaller robot.

"No problem." Brawn quirked a half smile. "Come along, let's get you to see your friend then we'll get you home for recharge. You look worn out." He said coming over and gently ushering her along with a hand on her back, like a parent with a child, but she was too tired and confused to be annoyed. Besides, he was taking her to Prowl, which _was the whole point of this whole mess anyway_. Stars of the skies she was tired, and a wreck. See Prowl, sleep for a week. That was a great plan.

Jazz called her name and she paused looking back. "Thanks for looking out for Prowl." He said, smiling a bit, relieved but not the excessively cheery one he seemed to usually wear. An honest, tired smile. "We all owe you for that. Ah don't know what we'd do without him." He said, voice kind and earnest.

She felt herself relax a bit, glad they valued Prowl, which was kinda silly, of _course_  they valued him, he was one of their own. "Oh, no problem. I'm glad to be able to help, even though it's not much."

\-------------------------------------------------------------

{Mechanics, scientists, who'd have thought we'd need an image consultant too? We've been at war so long on our world we haven't had to worry about such things in a great long time.}

{Maybe we should keep her around, she seems pretty interesting. Smart, not particularly prejudiced.}

{Huffer will be so annoyed, I only told him earlier today we wouldn't be keeping her because she wasn't useful.}

{We'll see.}


	13. Damaged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damaged Prowl in the medbay

"Th... that's Prowl?" She asked, hating how small her voice sounded. But how could it sound anything other than small? this ship was huge! Every room, every corridor, built on a scale for giant robots, giant robots that made her escort look tiny by comparison. In that vast emptiness any human voice seemed small and pathetic.

It looked like Prowl, she could see the police car in bumper that seemed to make up most of his chestplate, the hood was banged back somewhat into shape but it looked like it wasn't correctly attached and the whole front still looked compacted in. But his headlights had been replaced. And... structurally it looked better? And there were the doors of the police vehicle, spread out to either side like some bizarre version of angelic wings. So unless there were other Autobots that looked like police cars this _had_  to be him. He just... he looked so different, and so much bigger too, in his robot form. Unlike any of the others she'd seen in the medbay, he was hooked up to machines in some sort of parallel to a human in critical condition. The effect was both comfortingly familiar and disturbing in its implications.

"He... He isn't dying is he?" She couldn't help but ask turning to look at Ratchet, looming next to the almost medical bed where Prowl lay, partly propped up.

"No, not dying. He..." The medic's glowing eyes went back to the the injured police car. "Like I mentioned before, he was... we'll call it sick, before the battle. Still has some lingering damage from that on top of the battle damage."

"What did he do? Head on collision with a wall?"

Both bots snorted. "Something like that." Brawn said with a bit of a smirk and a healthy dose of reverence in his expression (as near as she could tell. It _seemed_  like these 'Transformers' expressed their emotions in a similar way to humans but she hadn't been around them long enough to know for certain of anything. And if it was similar was that because of natural similarities or learned behaviors as they had interacted with the humans here? A way to help bridge the inter-species gap?)

"Devastator. The idiot rammed him several times, mashed his front up so badly he couldn't transform anymore." The medic grumbled. "And that was _after_ he got his wing shot all the way through."

"T'were a thing of beauty." Brawn said with reverence.

"What is a devastator?" She asked, trying to look over at the two other bots but unable to look away from Prowl. The front of his car form did look better, not as compacted as she remembered. Still not good though, still something that needed body work, as a car anyway. Why was it partially reconstructed not fully? Or was repair slow and different for robots compared to cars?

"Devastator is formed when the Constructicons combine." Brawn said and she finally did turn to look at him. "He's... really... big." The orange and purple bot gestured indicating something large.

"Oh, the one that was as big as a building?" She looked over at Prowl. "He _rammed_  that?" What the heck was _wrong_  with him? That was nuts.

"Repeatedly. It was beautiful." Brawn said appreciatively and sighed rapturously.

"You are insane." She said turning on him. "He's insane. He might have been better off ramming a _wall_. At least walls aren't solid metal."

"That is what _I_ try to tell them." Ratchet grumbled, sounding perhaps slightly pleased to have someone taking his side. "But they never listen. Always pulling crazy stunts and then _I_ have to put them back together again."

"We can't just let the 'Cons win, fighting gets messy." Brawn protested, though there was a wry smile on his lips. Apparently this was an argument that came up frequently.

"Yeah because ramming Devastator is at all effective." Ratchet growled, almost but not quite, sneering.

"Effective enough, he saved Jazz and he knocked Devastator off balance enough the others were able to get in some good shots and take him down."

"And nearly offlined himself in the doing! He wouldn't have survived if Devastator had managed to stomp on him any more than Jazz would've." Ratchet protested, flailing his arms in frustration. It was actually pretty fun to watch. The easiness between them, and how little Brawn seemed bothered by the huge height difference, was soothing. This place felt safe.

Still, it was hard to get a good look at Prowl from the ground, her head was barely taller than the oversized medical bed Prowl was on. And it seemed that some of the sounds of the machines had changed. What had Ratchet said earlier? Something about him not being in medical stasis but sleeping extra deeply on purpose? But Ratchet and Brawn were arguing and she rather wanted to do some investigating on her own. She wished she could get closer, get a better look at Prowl. Again, the rather crumpled hood caught her attention. It had been sort of banged out, but it still looked like it wasn't attached properly. And that brought something else to mind. She ran her eyes over his metal body as best she could, though really she could only see his upper half because of the back part of the bed sloping upward to have him sitting up. "Ratchet, Jazz said that I could come back here and see Prowl just a bit ago because you had 'made him decent'?" She started, and could hear and feel, rather than see, as the metal medic turned to look at her, pausing in his argument with Brawn.

"Yeeesssss." Ratchet said guardedly, drawing the word out.

"And... well... I can't help but notice your people don't wear clothes. Unless your armor counts? but it is all metal, maybe different to you but it all seems the same to us who are organic I suppose... but well I can't help but notice that it looks like his hood is only sort of repaired and sort of jammed into place. So... Did you just sort of cram it into place so I wouldn't see his engine?" They did know that humans looked at the inside of cars _all the time_  right? Was it indecent in their culture?

Ratchet Harrumphed. "Jazz talks to much."

"So... does that mean I am right?" She asked, moving a bit further forward, Prowl's hands were white. Resting limply by his sides, his entire body still, almost silent, just a soft hum of electricity and machinery. Soft beeping of machines all around, hooked up to his battered frame.

"You are a perceptive one, that is for sure. Yes, I did cram his hood back on even though it's not done being repaired but it wasn't about hiding his engine block. His... spark was exposed." And that embarrassed tone told her it was indeed a sensitive matter.

"His... Spark?" Now she did turn, giving Ratchet a puzzled look. "What is that?"

Both of the robots shuffled awkwardly. "You tell her Ratchet." Brawn muttered.

Ratchet looked at Brawn then back to her looking unsettled. "It's... something like your idea of a soul. It is what makes us individuals, people, rather than just machines. It is very personal and private." He explained reluctantly.

She tilted her head to the side considering listening to the softly pipping monitors, almost like a heartbeat though if Prowl did have a 'heart' it was not like that of a human but some mechanical equivalent. A heart pumped your blood through your veins, that was its function. Prowl had been bleeding before, something pumped that through him. A fuel pump? But it sounded like a Transformer's _metaphorical_ heart was this 'Spark' thing of theirs. How beautiful and almost poetic it was that it had a physical existence, unlike the 'heart' of a human, which word was often just used as a metaphor to express how the 'spirit' fed the body, giving it life just as the physical heart pumped life giving blood through the body.

"If your people have Sparks as a physical manifestation of your souls how did you figure out we were people when there is nothing in us that can be measured to prove we have one?"

"What do you think we are? Monsters? We could tell by how you behave." Ratchet growled, and Brawn too had bristled a bit.

"Probably the same way you figured out that we were people not machines when you met us." Brawn said, diplomatically, the angles of his armor settling back down to normal until it lay smooth and solid again. Fascinating. Almost like a cat, or perhaps a bird resettling its feathers.

"Besides, it isn't like you humans are the first organic species we've ever met." The medic added, moving to fuss over one of the machines.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply anything. I was just curious. I can't imagine how you view-" And she stuttered to a stop because she heard something behind her. Her name, spoken by an all too familiar voice. Her breath caught and she could see how Brawn's gaze had shifted to look past her, a look of surprise on his face.

Silly, silly to get so worked up, so nervous or excited, she told herself and turned slowly. There was Prowl, sitting back against the raised half of medical bed, but now, the eyes that had been dark were lit with blue light, just like those of the other Autobots. Again he said her name, less questioning this time, more confident, though still sounding a bit out of sorts. And that smile. It was faint, and his whole expression seemed somewhat dazed, but for some reason it still made her heart flutter erratically as she watched his car doors twitch slightly, almost fluttering in a tiny muted way. And then he blinked and his eyes closed, vanishing behind metal eyelids as the light went out of those glowing eyes, frame going limp.

Prowl was a giant alien robot man, who she'd never really seen before, who was so big it was hard to see all of him at once from this close, who the medical bed he was on was so tall her head didn't really crest it. He shouldn't be able to be adorable, but as he had laid there, clearly in some sort of half drugged delirium, looking happily surprised to see her, his weird door wings fluttering, adorable was the only word that came to mind. With his eyes closed, he looked even more like a person, rather than the robot with the blue light eyes dark in shut down. An injured broken person who was part car.

"I... I thought you said he didn't wake up until he was well?" She said finally, when she thought she could control her voice.

"That is usually the case." Ratchet said, sounding odd. She wondered if the two bots were exchanging looks behind her, but she couldn't look away from Prowl, seeing his tired battered humanoid form for the first time since she'd met him. Seeing the person he was hidden inside the police car. "His readings changed the moment you came in. Suffered a flux about twenty minutes ago too." A quick mental calculation put that at not long after she arrived, probably just while she was walking through the orange halls to the medbay with Brawn.

Brawn let out a chuckle. "What do you think Ratchet?" And she turned her head to look at him, look at that smug smile on that wide metal face.

"I think Prowl's got himself a human." Ratchet said, with his own smug smile.

"What?" She said, and felt herself starting to bristle. She didn't belong to anyone.

"You mean a second one." And no, that was _not_  a twinge of jealousy she felt. She just... was overwhelmed by this all, and annoyed to be thought of as 'belonging' to anyone, robot or otherwise. "After all, he's already got that Chip kid."

Ratchet scowled. "Chip isn't Prowl's human. Chip belongs to everyone." He said huffily, in a way that suggested the medic felt that if Chip belonged to anyone it might as well be him.

"Hey, I don't belong to anyone." She said, crossing her arms and scowling up at the two giant robot men. "And I don't know who this Chip person is, but I don't think he'd like to be referred to as 'belonging' to anyone either." She said haughtily, standing as tall as she could. And the two 'bots had the _gall_ to laugh at her. She fumed.

"That isn't what we mean." Ratchet said.

"No, it's more like... friends. Your friends are 'yours' yes? And some of us 'bots have human friends." Brawn put in and Ratchet continued.

"We do not often allow any humans aboard the Ark. It is our base, a military outpost. We _don't let people_   _come here_ , not unless they have a purpose in being here. You are lucky Brawn took a shine to you or he wouldn't have brought you here to see Prowl at all. A human's bot is much like an advocate and the main one they spend their time with either socializing or working. Like Spike and Bumblebee. Sparkplug works with Bumblebee and often with me in medbay, doing the simpler types of repair work."

"Okay... that makes sense. This is a military base and you don't want civilians just hanging around. But you still let some around. So why?"

Shrugs. "They are helpful."

Oh yes, she was sure Spike, a young man who looked to be little more than a teenager, was very helpful to alien robots locked in an ancient war. Then again, maybe he _was_. There was something... almost lonely about the Autobots. And they were suddenly on this world full of little people that were similar in shape to them but soft and squishy. Brawn had explained how Optimus Prime had placed preserving human life as a top priority in all that the Autobots did. What exactly did these 'Transformers' think of humans? How did they view them? Their war had lasted so long that it had all but destroyed their home world. Certainly they did not wish to get humans' world ruined too, but was it more than that?

And this was too complicated to be thinking about after going a whole week on less than a dozen hours sleep. She leaned against the medical bed tiredly. "Okay... whatever. Thanks for making an exception for me." She knew Prowl was okay. He'd even woken up for a few seconds. "Can you take me home now? I think I'm gonna sleep for a week." Now that all that anxiety and tension, all that worry over Prowl, had finally faded, she was so, so tired... Part of her wanted to stay, but this was a military base and she _did_  know Prowl was okay.

Brawn led her out into the hall and transformed, letting her climb inside saying it would be easier than having her walk all the way to the exit too. She found herself crying as they drove off into the darkness. So stupid, crying. Brawn asked her what was wrong and she told him it was just because she was tired. But it was more than that. Her life's brush with the incredible was over. Now there was no reason for any of the Autobots to take an interest in her. She was just another human. She'd been thanked for looking after Prowl and seen that he was fine. It was over.

She would soon learn just how wrong she was. But until then her heart was heavy with grief and tormented by all the fuzzy could-have-beens that didn't even really make sense to her sleep deprived mind.


	14. Bluestreak's First Move

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this game of Chess Bluestreak is determined to win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brotherly competitiveness can get pretty scary when you throw a girl into the mix.
> 
> Bluestreak is _up to something_
> 
> For reference, this is still part of Pre-stunticon era. So there are no Decepticon cars. Yet.  
> For those of you who are die hards this is around episode 10 or so of season 2 of the cartoon. Just before Dinobot island, in case I want to put in some time vortex shenanigans, but more especially before 'Megatron's Master Plan' because I realized there _is _an episode where public favor is turned against the Autobots like our Reader predicted and now I am fiddling with ideas for including that in the fic but who knows. What happens happens. In the end the story is its own creation and I do my best to express it fairly.__

Bluestreak sat on a chair next to Prowl's medical bed. His brother, out of commission, yet again. He couldn't count the number of times it had been like this. Prowl terribly sick or injured, and Bluestreak sitting by his side, watching over Prowl and doing all he could to help until it passed. It had been distinctly less since Praxus had fallen and Bluestreak had finally joined the war. Joined? The gray praxian snorted at the thought. More like was dragged into it kicking and screaming. He was an _engineer_ , a builder, a maker, only medics were more naturally disinclined to war and killing.

But their beloved Praxus had died, only him left behind. And as he was being melted into the scenery, frame half swallowed by molten metal pouring in from the city above, he had thought he'd felt his lost brother, as if the screaming pain of frame and grief ravaged spark had re-established the bond they'd once had. And when he awoke Prowl _had_ been there. But Prowl had not known him. And Bluestreak had wished he had died with their city. Anything would have been better than seeing his brother for the first time since Prowl had joined the war and having his brother _not know who he was_. Yes, Prowl remembered that they were _brothers_ , but he had forgotten everything else about the relationship they had once had, believing that they were _just_ brothers. And in that moment of deep agony his grief had turned to rage and he had lashed out at the one mech who meant more to him than anything in all of Cybertron, more even than his own spark. If only because he carried the other half of his spark.

And in a moment of petty rage he had torn a terrible rent between them, said things that could never be unsaid, caused pain that could not be forgotten by either half of their spark. Later, when he had settled, when the grief was less, when his own frame had finally finished being repaired, when he had finally been able to fully process what had happened, the words, the baseless accusations (well not _completely_ baseless, but most certainly cruel and uncalled for) had hung between them, dividing them.

It had taken thousands of vorns to repair that breach. How many more would it take to restore the the one Prowl had made when he'd joined the war and cut all ties with Bluestreak? How could that be repaired when Prowl didn't even know what was missing, what he had done, what they had been?

He took his brother's white hand in his pale grey ones, rubbing the smooth delicately curved metal. There were more sensors in a Cybertronian's hands than anywhere else (with the exception of praxian sensor wings), to allow them the fine motor control necessary not to destroy everything they touched. His brother was well crafted, and the echos of the engineer Bluestreak had once been marveled at the construction every time. The sensors contained in and entwined with the plating were precise and perfectly designed to balance maximum efficiency and minimal required maintenance. As much sensitivity as could be squeezed out without it being obvious they weren't standard design. Bluestreak's hands used to be like that, before his frame had been mostly destroyed when Praxus was leveled. Now they were just standard model, still quite a feat of engineering, but... not the same. He felt hand deaf now, perpetually numb in his whole frame even long after the shock of his ordeal had faded, even the new sensor wings hardly half as sensor rich. No one had known he was an engineer, and even if they had just the hand upgrade would have been extra time and resources the Autobots could ill afford to waste on a half mad neutral who they had already spent so much on just to reconstruct into functionality.

He couldn't be an engineer anymore, not like this, perhaps never again. He had become just another warrior for the Autobot cause. With his city destroyed, even the plates it had stood on gone forever in a solemn mockery of the very idea of rebuilding, he had seen no other viable option. His ability to create had been taken from him, possibly forever, so he had become a destroyer, a killer, a snuffer of sparks. He had never told anyone what he had been before. What did it matter? Praxus was dead, and the engineer he had been died with it. At least becoming an Autobot meant he had been able to spend some time with his estranged brother. Working with Prowl, having him train him in sniping, the art of killing, had been nice, even if the subject matter had torn at his spark. The two had worked together so often as newsparks, exchanging tips and tricks and training, information and skills and perceptions. He had hoped that things would go back to how things had been before Prowl had cut him off 'for his own good'. But they had not, there had been the harsh words to get over and that had taken much longer than his combat training had. And there was, of course, still insurmountable breach Prowl had made when he had carved Bluestreak out of his life altogether, just so he could join the cursed war. Prowl'd even deleted all the most important memories the two had made together, the ones most important to their relationship, so _they wouldn't distract him_ as he worked to help the Autobots.

Did he feel it still? That empty ache in his spark where Bluestreak had once been? Even if the processor did not remember, surely the spark still did right? Bluestreak still felt that hole, every hour of every day since Prowl had cut him off. Even now, holding his hand, his brother's systems humming softly so close to his, there was no connection, only the pain, the endless grieving pain. What if they had been apart so long they could never be together again? What if there was no way to reclaim his brother? Prowl relied on others now, perhaps they filled the hole where Bluestreak had once been. Did Jazz make a better brother than he had? And since that was all Prowl thought he was now, why would Prowl treat Bluestreak preferentially? Why would he want Bluestreak back? How would Prowl ever believe they had been anything more when his own databanks said otherwise? What if Prowl was lost to him forever?

Those were the questions and uncertainties that had held Bluestreak back for all these seeming endless vorns. He would only ever have one chance to try to explain things to Prowl, the mech was too logical for a second attempt to prompt a different conclusion. So he had put it off again and again, tried to get closer to his brother, build a rapport with him before springing the truth on him. But his fear had held him back, held him back even now, as others became close to his most treasured brother. And now Prowl had fallen in love with a human, another powerful bond, so strong so great that even Bluestreak felt it. So that meant their sparks were still connected, at least a little, right? Bluestreak offlined his optics as pain surged through him, his spark convulsing, aching, longing, reaching out for the other half brutally torn away so long ago. Its other half that could never be reached, never be found ever again. Its other half that resided in the mech right next to him but might as well not have existed for how impossible it was to connect with again.

The pain passed and Bluestreak reviewed again the datafiles of Prowl's readings during the last couple earth days he had stolen from the medical files. No one knew he had been an engineer, that he understood all the readings and charts as well as most medics, better than Wheeljack certainly. Bluestreak had taken quite a lot of extra courses in frame engineering because of all that had been done to Prowl, in hopes of helping the poor abused mech with all the modifications and brutal experimentation he had undergone _after_ he had been called from Vector Sigma. Focus on the facts, correlate the medical data with the timestamps of all the events that day, specifically the ones involving the human femme. The spark monitor readings were especially telling. Her voice had soothed his brother's spark, repairing the damage Prowl had done to himself during the preceding weeks by trying to deny their feelings. Strong response. How had Prowl created such a strong emotional bond with the human without Bluestreak noticing? But more telling Prowl's spark had reacted the same time Bluestreak's had when the Autobot sniper had first caught sight of the human. There still was a connection between the two of them, if nothing else this proved that there was still hope for the two of them, that he would be able to get his brother back.

But that was later, for now he still needed to get Prowl recovered from his stupid stunt of fighting his emotions till it nearly offlined him. Which Bluestreak's own presence was not sufficient to ease alone (though the readings showed that, as always, it did have a healing effect on Prowl even if the mech didn't remember), but add that human to the mix and it should do the trick.

No, he wasn't ready to just let Prowl have her, or her to have Prowl, he couldn't let her replace him entirely before he could reforge the broken bond between him and Prowl. He had worked too hard for too long, and these readings made it clear there was still hope, so he would not allow her to ruin it. But he would get her back here to help Prowl recover. Healing Prowl came before reclaiming what had been lost. He still hadn't worked out the _details_ of his plan quite yet (Prowl was the planner of the two of them after all, Bluestreak's planning had been mainly architectural not plots and tactics), but he _would_ get there. He would find a way to use this to get Prowl to see reason, to get his brother back and maybe help get the girl they loved too.

Bluestreak sighed getting up. Being a twin was always _so_ complicated.

 

 

After sleeping for almost two days straight she felt much better. The fact that she was back to the daily grind was less refreshing but not nearly so disappointing as the fact that she no longer seemed to have any Autobots following her. True she didn't know what they all looked like but still. When she'd finally got up she'd thought back on the other night marveling at her silliness. Just because Brawn had just agreed to let her come along to check on Prowl, didn't mean she wouldn't get to visit them again or get involved. She had hoped to see them, looked forward to it, but there had been no 'minicons' following her all this day. No flash of a red sigil, and every car she looked at _had_ a driver.

Bus, stupid bus. She wished she still had her car, it cost less and there was always that sense of freedom when you drove yourself. Job interviews were harsh, so much competition, and people leaving the city to find work until the crisis passed. Only some had the savings to survive until things were rebuilt, okay a lot of them, but not enough to slacken the competition. Good news, with the Autobots helping with reconstruction it probably wouldn't take _that_ long for things to get back to normal. Bad news, she was already late for this month's rent. Only by a couple days, and she _had_ paid part, but still. The future was looking grim.

Greg had called and left a message on her machine. He was worried about her and had only bad news about the company. It looked like they would take her back on but that could be two or three months away. He hoped she would call him back, see if he could help her get through this tough time. She hadn't called him back yet. Just the idea made her feel glum, as if admitting defeat almost. But she did still like him, and his concern did warm a corner of her heart. But... not as much as it would have just a week ago.

 _Not as much as it would have before Prowl smiled at you._ Came that nagging thought from the back of her mind and she shoved it away harshly. Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. He was a giant robot car man. He was not cute, he was huge and made of metal. He had just been glad to see she was safe, that was it. And she was glad to see _he_ was safe. That was ALL there was to it.

But just to be sure she had been very careful _not_ to call Tiff and tell her all that had happened. Whatever... emotional complication this might be Tiff was sure to make it ten times worse. And she was _not_ going to have a crush on a giant robot man, no matter how ~~incredibly awesome~~ ~~cool~~ ~~Tiff might make it sound.~~

No, it was just too weird. Things were strictly platonic, very strictly platonic. Tiff was the ridiculous one and she was the sensible one in their friendship. And the very last thing she needed was Tiff ranting about how 'swoon worthy' certain Autobots were even without _knowing_ that she'd finally seen Prowl's humanoid form. Heavens, when Tiff found out she'd _seen_ him? Her face was already burning with embarrassment and she tried again to shuffle her thoughts onto another topic.

It seemed Transformers were the only thing on her mind right now though. Really she should be thinking about job interview things, but instead her mind was on Brawn and the Minicons. No doubt still helping out with reconstruction, all together now that they didn't have some human to follow around like a group of mechanical German shepherds. Or maybe goslings. That made her smile slightly at the thought, a whole bunch of alien robot guys following her around as over-sized duckling car things. They would make cute ducklings. And holy heck what was wrong with her? What kind of normal sane person thought things like this? She tapped her head against the window lightly in frustration and got off at the next stop. Maybe some walking would help restore some of her clearly fading sanity. Besides, she was getting close to where she lived anyway.

Another day, another fruitless search. The help wanted signs had all but vanished city wide and they were not letting women help with reconstruction. Sure there was a lot of work and they would take any able bodied man to help but no women without previous experience in construction or engineering. It was stupid and annoying but as places continued to be rebuilt things would get better or something. Until then she had boiled rice to live off of while she tried to make her meager savings stretch out as long as possible. She had been saving up for a steamer but now she was slightly glad not to have gotten it. Even if steamed rice tasted better it meant she could last a while longer before she got kicked out of her apartment.

It was while she was thinking glumly about boiled rice and whether or not to ask Greg or Tiff for help that a strange car pulled up beside her matching her pace. This was quite a noticeable thing because she was walking opposite traffic and while the road wasn't busy this time every car that passed her honked at the vehicle traveling down the street the wrong way, some even rolling down their windows and yelling. She looked over startled at the gray-scale vehicle that was sneaking along beside her, hugging the curb expertly so it didn't extrude too far into the actual traffic lanes. No driver. Her eyes widened slightly in surprise and automatically flicked to the hood where most Autobots seemed to keep their sigil in vehicle form. Crimson squarish symbol, not the angular purple Decepticon one. And was it just her imagination or had the vehicle perked up, lifting slightly up off its tires?

Another car passed by driver leaning on its horn and the Autobot ignored it. "Hi?" She hazarded, seeing as the Autobot didn't speak up as soon as he had her attention. On one hand, yay an Autobot, on the other hand, he was driving against traffic just to be near her and that seemed like mentally unstable to her. Unless... "You do know you aren't supposed to drive on this side of the road right?"

"Why not? All these other cars are."

"Yeah, but they are going the opposite direction."

"Can't be helped, you are going this direction and it would be annoying to have to keep flipping around to drive by again and again just so we can talk." He said dismissively "Besides, I'm waaaaay over to the side in the, what's it called? parking lane? and there are hardly any cars on this road right now and _two whole lanes_ of traffic, I'm not going to cause an accident. Hey, I can do this if it makes you feel better." He added, and when the street was clear he flipped around, pulling up to her facing the right direction, hugging the curb again closer than any human could manage without scraping. Then he started to back up, matching her pace, rear lights flashing and managing to look incredibly smug despite not having an identifiable face as a car. " Better? I'm facing the right way now."

She couldn't help but laugh at him, half exasperated and half admiring. Maybe the mentally unstable thing wasn't too far off the mark, but he seemed harmless enough. And weren't all the Autobots good anyway? Brawn had talked about quite a few and while she had been too tired and anxious to really absorb any details at the time the consensus was that they were all decent people. Brawn would have warned her if any were dangerous. "Aren't you worried you will hit something?"

"I won't. I can sort of see behind me just as easily as in front. Not really see see but something a lot like it. Sort of 3D image rendering from environmental and proximity sensors so no color and not technically 'seeing', but close enough and it lets me perceive my surroundings in all directions. Not all can, but different frame types different abilities ya'know?" He paused a moment in his ramble as if waiting for a response but not quite long enough for her to work out what he was saying before he added. "My name's Bluestreak."

"Really? But you aren't blue." She blurted out without thinking and an icy silence fell over the bot. Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. "Sorry, I mean, the dark grey parts are a sort of bluish grey." She said and looked at him a bit harder. Was it just her or was he the same _shape_ as Prowl? She couldn't tell for certain though, she wasn't really much for cars or things, but it sort of was that shape, long and sort of sporty.

"I... used to be blue." He said quietly, chipper voice suddenly down and sad, sunk down almost to the point where he was dragging his undercarriage on the asphalt. He had slowed to a crawl too, almost as if crushed under a weight of deep grief and awful memories. And she remembered Ratchet's implication that being grey was a sign of illness among their kind. He didn't seem ill, was it a long term thing? Though his grey tones did rather look on purpose, bold and reasonably attractive so maybe not illness? And they weren't _completely_ grey. She was trying to think of something to say to salvage the situation when the car perked back up. "Well anyway, I came to get you so hop in, let's go." He said, passenger door popping open invitingly.

"Wait, came to get me?" She regarded him suspiciously. Who had sent him and why? She was a civilian, non military. Why would they want her back on their busy base again? Why have him show up after her usual Minicon tails had vanished without a trace? Possibilities lurched to the forefront of her mind. Could he be a Decepticon? He had the Autobot sigil but that could probably be pretty easily duplicated. Then again, if the Decepticons wanted to kidnap her why play nice instead of just grabbing her? And how would they know about her anyway? It wasn't as if she had really spent much time around the Autobots yet either. And even if he was flouting traffic laws he seemed harmless enough. "Who sent you? Does Jazz want to talk to me again or what?"

"Jazz? No, I just came to get you, no one sent me, wanted to meet you n stuff. Wanna go for a drive?"

"A drive? With you?" She raised her eyebrows at him and directed a skeptical look at his headlights (looking at the empty driver's seat was a tad unnerving and it wasn't as if his face _was_  there, the headlights at least could be imagined as eyes). But at this point she _was_ teasing. Mostly. "You think I'm just going to drop everything and run off with anyone who asks?" Just because she liked the Autobots didn't mean they could stop by any time and kidnap her just to 'hang out' or whatever. She was an adult and had responsibilities and bills and other things. _Including a sort of boyfriend._  She reminded herself. She liked Greg, she really did. And there was only so much involved she could be in the Autobot's lives as a simple civilian and it wasn't as if they were involved with human military either right? So what exactly did qualify someone to become close friends to the Autobots? To wander their halls and work with them? No don't think about that. You have a nice normal life, you don't need such distractions.

"Awww come on, I've got food! You haven't refueled all day, I know you must be hungry." Said a very loud distraction named Bluestreak.

She stopped and stared at him intently. "How do you know that?" And of course her stomach took that very moment to rumble loudly. Stupid traitorous stomach, she blushed.

"Weeeeeellllll... I was following you for a while but I didn't want to interrupt. I know humans have work and daily lives and things and I didn't want to bother you too much but it's later in the day now and you need to refuel anyway and go home to rest and I was wondering if you would come with me and visit Prowl and stuff. You _do_ want to visit Prowl don't you?"

Well yes. But also no. Her feelings were.... complicated and she didn't want to get them more tangled up. Prowl was just a weird car friend. A person, but don't think of him as a _guy_. "What kind of food?" She found her mouth saying, instead of the more sensible 'thanks but no thanks'.

"Chinese take out. I hear it is good? I don't know, I've never tasted it of course, and it smells kinda funny, not that my kind have a good sense of smell usually, smells are kinda extraneous for our species, especially organic ones, since we don't eat organic things really. Sometimes oils, and other things that can be used as fuels, not like this stuff, so strange. Does it smell good to you?"

Yes, it smelled _really_ good. When was the last time she had a real meal? She wasn't sure where he had gotten it but it smelled delicious and it was hot. "Fine, I'll come with you." She said with false reluctance though she had a feeling the wry smile on her lips was giving her away. "But only because you have food." She said and when that made him laugh she found herself joining in as she slipped in through the open passenger door. The door snapped closed almost as soon as she had sat down and she jumped slightly. "What? Worried I'll try to escape?" She asked wryly.

"Nah, just a bit impatient I guess." Bluestreak said with an embarrassed chuckle. "'sides, the heat's getting out and that make the food cool faster and it's supposed to be better hot. All human food is, almost, or so I hear, except some foods are meant to be eaten cold? Like ahisss cre... ahiss... icecream?"

"Yeah, ice cream is meant to be eaten cold." She said chuckling as she buckled her seat belt. "It is served frozen though some prefer to eat it practically melted." She reached over and snagged the bag of take out from the driver's seat and nearly fell over as Bluestreak whipped around in a tight U-turn, thumping against her door. Well _his_ door (and had he made a tiny squeak when she hit it or had that been her?), but the passenger side one, the one nearer her. "Hey." she laughed, it hadn't hurt and the speed was a bit exhilarating. "You did that on purpose." She complained.

Again he laughed. He had a nice laugh really. The sort she'd imagine Prowl would have. Dang it, don't think of Prowl. Just because this bot did sort of look like Prowl's vehicle mode, and have a somewhat similar voice, he wasn't the same at all. "Maybe a bit. But like I said, I am a bit impatient."

"Impatient for what? You've already got me." She laughed.

"Dunno, just fun to drive? And I did promise you'd get to see Prowl. Just don't spill any of your food on me okay? If you do you'll have to clean it out because I have no idea how to fix this new upholstery."

"New?" She asked opening one of the boxes carefully over the bag as she got out some chopsticks. "What happened to the old stuff?"

"Oh that, well when we woke up here on earth Teletran-1 rebuilt us as earth vehicles, including the internals of our vehicle modes. Ya'know, seating and stuff, and all these fiddly dials and things."

"Really? So, you didn't get a say in what you were rebuilt as?"

"No... no not really. I mean, Teletran-1 tried to give us vehicle modes that were similar to how we were before but we were all Cybertronian vehicles, not earth ones, and we were all... in deep damage-induced stasis, Teletran-1 couldn't really get our opinions on things, just rebuilt us all as best he could and gave us some basic language and culture uploads from his observations. 's what he was built for after all. Explore, monitor, repair, maintain. Ya'know, stuff like that. He's a lot of help and good what he does, but just an AI in the end."

"So... what is it made of then? I mean it looks and feels like leather but I don't think you had animals on Cybertron? Or not organic ones and I don't really know much about the whole being rebuilt after the crash thing, Brawn tried to explain it but I swear I only understood about half of it, but I don't think your ship's computer could have had real leather to put into you right?"

"No, you're right, it's synthetic. We had a lot of synthetic fibers and materials back on Cybertron, some did come from mechanimals like yours do but all can be synthesized. So yeah, while it looks and feels like, what did you say? leather? It isn't actually made of animal hide. Just synthetic. Most others have different materials for their upholstery, it all depends on what vehicle Teletran scanned to base them on. Our vehicle forms are designed for disguise, to blend in, it wouldn't work very well if our visible internals were still Cybertronian style now would it?"

She laughed. "No I suppose not. Though the no driver thing is a bit of a give away too, and your Autobot insignia."

"You would be surprised how many people never notice the no driver thing. You humans are always so busy in your own minds you don't really notice your surroundings too much, and the insignia is only visible from the front and no one pays much attention to opposing traffic. More importantly our disguises are more meant for against the Decepticons, and they tend to find all cars look the same and can't see the lack of drivers from above which is their usual vantage point. However, we have started to have ride along to sort of pose as drivers sometimes to help us blend when we are doing more human involved things."

"Oh? Really?" She perked up and paused in her eating interested. Maybe that meant, but no, she wouldn't even let herself think of such things, of working with the autobots as a fake driver, of working with Prowl of... nope, not thinking about that _at all_.

"Yeah, some human police forces have started asking for our help in some things and Prowl was pushing for us helping. He was the equivalent of a police officer on Cybertron you know, it was what he was built for before the war swept everything normal and everyday away in its brutal tide. I think he, no I _know_ he misses it. But Optimus Prime is reluctant to get involved in human things on such a scale. He'll rush to help anyone who asks it but he is worried about letting anything become a regular thing, or humans relying on Autobots to do certain things when our first priority is keeping everyone safe from Decepticons."

"And so if you are dealing with police forces and human problems you want to have a driver just in case so people won't automatically recognize you as Autobots?"

"Yeah something like that." He said sounding suddenly distracted. "Sorry, just give me a sec, gotta get directions from Brawn as to the best way to get out of town. Not used to this one, haven't really been here much at all after all." She remembered when she had been in the medbay of the Ark just a few days ago, the bots moving and emoting slightly as if engaged in silent conversation. It felt sort of like that, knowing Bluestreak was talking to Brawn, who she couldn't see anywhere, and in a way she couldn't hear. Again the telepathy thing came to mind and she focused on eating to keep from squirming impatiently.

"Okay, I'm back now." He said as he carefully turned around from the narrow road they were on to head toward a bigger one. Clearly he had gotten directions.

She wondered why he hadn't thought to ask her but she had more pressing things on her mind. "I've noticed you guys doing silent conversations before now, so, what, are you guys _mind readers_? You know, like telepaths or something?"

"What? No, of course not. How would we even do that? But I suppose Soundwave is. He can do that sort of thing sometimes. Even with humans it seems, even though your brains are so different. At least he did with Chip to get that formula they needed. But Soundwave is weird. We aren't like him. No Autobots are mind readers. At least not that I know of. But I do know a lot of them, the ones that are still alive anyway, or at least have heard of them. And none of them are mind readers. Though a lot of people _think_ Prowl is a mind reader. But he isn't, its just his predictive software. Tactical models are like that, but my brother especially." And here his voice swelled with obvious pride. "He is the very best at what he does." He added, with a fierce, almost challenging edge to his voice.

"So... Prowl is your brother?"

"Yes, he is, didn't I say that? I meant to say it, because he is my brother, or something like it? Brother isn't really a word in our language, it's not even the same concept, not like organics at least, since we are constructed not born? Except we do have people who _made_ us and contributed to like making the parts and assembling and programming and calling and all that, but it isn't like parents really, more like just creators? So we call them creators in your language? But it isn't really a personal thing usually, most are just made by the city for a purpose, so not like organic families at all. Certainly not like your kind's families, but we do have connections one to another that are sort of like family? And the words can be used to indicate relationships that are not strictly biological after all. So we are kin, all of us really, but Prowl and I especially, I mean beyond just being frame kin, though we are all sort of related, all us Autobots I mean, and the Decepticons too I guess, because we are all more or less made the same way in the end, and all called from Vector Sigma, so same origin? Our sparks all come from the same source so all a family in that way? I mean, that sort of thing. But some of us _are_ closer than others you know? And not just like with the frame kin thing. Prowl and I are closer than that. That's why I say brothers instead of just, dunno, friends? But we are really close, always were. Even if we aren't biologically related like human brothers would be. But it is the same sort of bond you know? And we grew up together, even though transformers don't actually grow like organics do. But you do start out without any personal memories and experiences, even if you have all the packages to do your function and stuff. So just an inexperienced stage instead of being physically incomplete like an organic child. Can be really dangerous in some cases because some come online with weapons systems and don't really know how to use them at first and ka-boom! But mostly that is Decepticons not Autobots, Decepticons are the natural warriors after all, made that way, Autobots not so much."  
"Am I talking too much?"

She chuckled, "No, it's fine, I like learning more about you guys anyway."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On an unrelated note, I am now seriously tempted to try drawing the minibots as 'ducklings'. My writing runs in strange ways.


	15. Wake Up Fluff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AKA Stupid fluff fluff  
> I have no plot I'm afraid, but have something cute

Prowl woke slowly, becoming aware of a small heavy warmth against one side. Boot protocols ran and one by one his systems initialized and databanks woke up, recent memories queuing up for his examination. He had been damaged, his chronometer reported his battle computer had been offline for almost two weeks now. More worrying it was _still_ offline. Minor processor damage, previous damage alerts indicated that it was significantly repaired from what it had been. Ratchet must have been hard at work getting him in working order, but there were limits to what could be done by external forces for processor damage.

Memories from after were trying to get his attention. Again the warmth next to him came to his attention. Sensors in his nearer doorwing were still damaged, he'd had a hole blown through the center of it and while it still hurt it seemed to be mostly repaired. But that wasn't what had gotten his attention. The readings coming in described... but that couldn't be. He onlined his optics and looked down. Nope. That wasn't right. That couldn't be.

Except it was.

There she was, his sweet little human, curled up against his side, back against his arm. She looked so peaceful asleep like this. Small, warm, breathing soft and even, her heartbeat soft and gentle. So fragile, so delicate, so beautiful.

What in the name of Primus was she doing here? A quick glance confirmed the he was, indeed, in the medbay of the Ark. So how had his lovely little human ended up here? Had she been brought here when the Autobots came to get him? He would have to scold them for kidnapping.

And yet...

It felt so good to have her there. And the queued up memories. He really had seen her there earlier, heard her voice calling his name, waking him from his deep stasis. This was the first time he'd really been able to get a good look at her. Well and peaceful, and with his own optics too. She was so beautiful and so kind, just as he'd hoped. Why was she there though? Except there was only one logical reason. She wanted to be there, wanted... to be... with him...?

He shivered, the idea making his logic circuits fritz. No, just wishful thinking. Or... she had been worried about him. She wanted to look after him, make sure he was safe. Had she fallen asleep watching over him? How cute.

Carefully he shifted his arm away from her, moving slowly so as to not wake her, then gently stroked her back, the end of his digit brushing along the 'hair' that went down her back. Prowl blinked, lenses shifting and clicking as they re-calibrated in surprise. He had known humans were soft and delicate but her hair, it was incredible. He'd never felt anything so soft and couldn't stop himself from stroking it again, keeping his touch as light as possible. She was so small, so fragile, he didn't want to hurt her. Just as long as he was careful, it would be alright.


	16. Testing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Lost, who believed there were still words left in me to write.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is smaller than I hoped but maybe smaller chapters will let me post them more frequently and get more done total
> 
> This is my one year anniversary of joining the TF fandom, I _had_ to post something today.
> 
>  

When he woke up again she wasn't there. No, instead _Huffer_  of all mechs. Prowl blinked at him, sitting up and shifting his doorwings. "Huffer?" _What are you doing here?_  He wanted to ask, but the room was already so full of nervous tension, the orange and purple minibot's long cylindrical arms folded over his chassis, a nervous glower on on his face.

"Yeah, it's me." Huffer replied, staring. And then failed to elaborate.

Prowl blinked at the minibot, fiddling with the controls to the bed until it could hold him up in a sitting position. Sitting up on his own still made his injured wing ache but even without the pain blockers it wasn't that bad. "Can I help you?" He asked after the silence had stretched out enough to make even _him_  uncomfortable.

"What?" The minibot flinched and let out a nervous huff. "No I just..." And there was that faint lack of focus to his optics that told Prowl he was talking with someone over comms. "Just checking to see if you are well and what not." Prowl stared at him. It was _obvious_  someone had put him up to this, but that he was _still_  willing to do it... it seemed all but alien to him. Huffer, asking how he was doing? Huffer didn't _care_. "So... um.... are you okay?"

"What?" Oh, he'd forgotten there had been questions. Huffer wasn't the only one guilty of creating awkward silences in this encounter. "I am... nearly fully recovered. As I am sure _Ratchet_  could inform you just as easily." He explained, wondering _why_  Huffer was asking him instead of the doctor. The only ones who ever visited him were Jazz, Bluestreak, and the Prime himself, and sometimes, very rarely, Red Alert.

"Oh, well... that's good." Huffer hesitated, seeming to be listening to his comms again. "I wanted to say... sorry for making fun of you before about your humming. I... um... it's good for you to be happy... and stuff..." And there was another awkward pause.

"It's... fine." Prowl said slowly, watching the minibot with a frown. "Is there... anything else? I fear I am not doing my duties again yet, so I am not sure there is much I can do for you now... So is that all?"

"What? Yes. Sorry you got hurt in the last battle." He said hurriedly, getting up from the chair and heading for the door. As he reached it though he paused and gave Prowl an intent look. "We really do rely on you a lot Prowl. You do good work." Huffer added, with more sincerity than his previous apology had held. Prowl stared at him in blank confusion. This didn't fit with any of his previous encounters with the minibot. "Um... yeah... that's all." Huffer said, nervous again, and fled the room, the door whishing shut behind him.

Prowl lay back against the raised back of the medical berth processing for a while, but not very long before _Brawn_  came in through the door. Prowl stared at him intently, processor whirring. The probability of Huffer coming in to check on him was less than 0.0000023%. The probability of Brawn doing the same was quite a bit more at 0.0000104% but having _both_  of them do it? Consecutively? He could feel his cooling fan whine with the stress of fighting off impending overheat as his tactical computer tried to calculate the odds. He shook his helm, forcibly crashing the calculation before it could crash him. _Clearly_ someone was putting them up to this, it wasn't just some sort of bizzare happenstance. No doubt it was Jazz, trying to prove that the other mechs of their group didn't hate him or whatever.

"Prowl! How are ya my mech?" Brawn said with a huuuuge smile.

"I am doing acceptably. If you wish greater detail than that you may ask _Ratchet_." Prowl said crossly.

 

  
In the main room of the medbay, placed there because Optimus himself wasn't yet discharged, was a large screen showing the view of Prowl's private room in the medbay through the lens of the tiny surveillance camera that had been secretly installed in one corner of the ceiling for this very purpose. And that noble purpose was, namely, spying on Prowl to find out who the mech was in _loooooove_ with.

All the Autobots not currently on patrol (and those were few at the moment) were sprawled helter skelter across the room, making use of every flat surface to sit or lean on lie on as they watched the drama on the screen unfold, laughing and chatting, joking and sipping at mid grade or watered down high grade energon (No one wanted to get too drunk and miss the moment of truth after all). All bets of who the lucky (or unlucky depending on your perspective) mech who had caught their SiC's optic and stolen his spark were final, all that was left was determining who the mech was and settling things once and for all. The atmosphere was one of a casual hang out, too many key mechs still sore and healing from the last battle for a more wild party but everyone was enjoying themselves regardless.

"He suspects something." Bluestreak said, wings twitching a bit as a half smile tugged at his lips watching his brother's increasing annoyance as the SiC all but bawled WindCharger out for the simple crime of asking how he was doing.

"Well 'a course he does, this ain't a normal situation now is it?" Jazz chuckled denta flashing as he grinned.

"True true, but there isn't really a whole lot we can do about that now is there." Smokescreen replied a faint nervous vibration to his doorwings that Bluestreak, as the only other Praxian in the room, noticed when no one else did. Or maybe Jazz did too, it was hard to tell with that mech. He couldn't really blame Smokescreen for the nervousness though, he was the bookie for this event, and if someone started accusing him of fixing this or the process stressing Prowl enough that the many diodes and monitors hooked up to him would read incorrectly the whole betting might be called off and Smokescreen would lose quite a lot of the credits he already consider his. "We certainly can't explain to him the purpose of this, he is too determined to hide his feelings till the end of time, we need a pure reaction to identify his crush." The gambler added with a bit of a smirk.

"Why don't you send me in then?" Bluestreak asked, tilting his wings upward in an expression of cheer and helpfulness.

"Oh Primus Blue, he's your brother isn't he?" Someone half wailed in protest.

"That ain't natural mech." Cliffjumper groused crossly, clearly disgusted.

"Argh, not like _that_." Bluestreak replied rolling his optics. "I mean, I can _explain_  so he'll stop being so freaked out by what we are doing. I know I'm not the one he's fallen for." He said with a huff, though his knowing half smirk reasserted itself on his features quickly enough. Of all the mechs here he was the only one who _truly knew_  who his twin had fallen for. They shared a spark after all, and the love in it. "Just send me in next and I can take care of it. We'll get to the bottom of this mystery no sweat." He said, using a phrase he had learned for the humans, even though he wasn't _entirely_  sure what sweat was.

"For the good of all Bluestreak, we place his fate in your hands." Optimus Prime said, nodding his powerful helm seriously while several minibots piled onto the berth around or on top of their still injured leader. But Optimus Prime was only able to maintain the seriousness for a few moments before the eagerness inside him sprang back up and the large mech clasped his hands in front of him staring up rapturously at the screen that showed Prowl and the readings from the medical monitors. "Oh I can't _wait_  to find out who he is in _Looooooove_  with." He whispered and sighed dramatically with almost comical longing.

"Hee hee, Ah know! Isn't this _great_?" Jazz purred squirming excitedly in place. The Head of Special Ops had helped arrange most of this whole 'Prowl's love test' experiment/party and positively beamed with delight.

"All you idiots watch _far_  too many human soap operas. A mech's feelings are their own, and shouldn't be broadcasted to all the world." Ratchet grumbled double checking the spark monitor feed. There was a wry half smile on his face though, so Bluestreak knew the mech wasn't _too_ upset about literally broadcasting all of Prowl's spark reactions to everyone in the room. The medic had to be deathly curious too, or he wouldn't have set that part up for all to see.

But as Bluestreak passed by the medic on the way to his twin's private recovery room he noticed the faint hunch to Ratchet's shoulders, and the faint quiver of excessive tension being stored there. Perhaps there was a bit more to this than simple curiosity. Bluestreak felt his spark soften slightly. The medic really _did_  care about his brother, and as Ratchet's glowing blue optics fixed on the screen on the wall, pained longing plain for the sniper to see, Bluestreak realized that the whole reason Ratchet chose to play along was in desperate hope that by understanding Prowl's emotional state the medic would be better able to help and heal the emotionally damaged tactian. While the others were taking entertainment from his brother's dilemma Ratchet's only desire was to help and heal. Bluestreak wished his motives were still so simple and pure, but that, along with so many other things, had been lost to him the day Praxus died.

 

  
Bluestreak sauntered in and Prowl scowled at him almost automatically. "Heya Prowl."

"What do _you_  want?" Prowl snapped, at the end of his patience. He crossed his arms over his chest glaring belligerently. "Have _you_  come to ask me how I am doing as well? Or are you here to comment on the _weather_?" He asked acidly, he was quite done with all of these 'visits' from his fellow Autobots. None of it made sense and none of it was an efficient way to gather information or to spend each individual's time. Health questions should be directed to Ratchet and until he was cleared for duty and working schedules again he didn't _care_ what the weather outside was like.

"Calm down Prowl, I'm not gonna harass you." Bluestreak said with a chuckle and opened his hands at Prowl palms flat and fingers splayed facing upward, a sign of peace and a show of having no weapons or tools on hand. "Sorry you are being bothered by everyone, it is going to be okay, I promise."

Prowl let out a disbelieving huff. "You want to explain _why_ everyone has taken a sudden interest in my health and feelings then?" He snapped, in a dark mood.

"It is a reaction test." Bluestreak said with a half smile and Prowl understood, anger and frustration easing a bit.

"Why?" The tactician asked simply.

Bluestreak chuckled. "Can't tell you that now. But we need to test your reactions as part of the diagnostics we are running. So just sit back and try to stay calm for us. Just interact with everyone and everything as naturally as you can and don't worry about the odds or such things and definitely do _not_  try to speculate as to what we are testing for okay?" He explained with a crooked grin.

Prowl thought on it a while, it wasn't going to be particularly easy, but at least knowing that this was an organized test was enough to satisfy the part of his processor screaming that this sort of thing _didn't_  happen. And he no longer had to worry about _why_  it was happening because he would be told later and the more he tried to predict the purpose the worse he would skew the results. He took a while reorganizing his priorities and protocols to fit the situation as he understood it now and was relieved that Bluestreak just stood there quietly, patiently waiting instead of pressing him for a quick response to his questions. Bluestreak seemed to understand him better than almost anyone, but then they were brothers weren't they? Learning and training together at their newspark home they must've been close, and come to understand each other well. That was the most logical conclusion.

"I am ready." Prowl said finally.

Bluestreak nodded, smile widening and softening. "Great. I'll leave you to it then. Take care bro."

Prowl managed a weak smile in return, waving as Bluestreak left. He supposed he was lucky to have someone so clever about numbers and proper testing methods as a brother, and luckier still that the mech was willing to help him, even when it was not necessary. It was a small bit of comfort in his rather harsh existence. Smiling gently to himself he prepared for his next visitor, reminding himself not to worry about the probabilities of the encounters to come and try to talk pleasantly with the other Autobots that were roped into helping with this mysterious test.

 

  
"See, I told you I could fix it." Bluestreak said, almost smugly as he watched Prowl's much calmer readings on the big screen as Grimlock tried (very ineffectively) to make small talk with the tactician. "He's not stressing about why everyone is visiting him, or over thinking the awkward talking, all _without_  cluing him in on what this is really about." He paused and frowned. "Though you will probably have to be careful with the Dinobots... it sounds like Grimlock is about to spill the metaphorical beans." He added watching Prowl's distress and confusion spike as Grimlock 'confessed' his love for the tactician. Bluestreak shook his helm. "That is for you guys to sort out."

"I'm working on it, I'm working on it." A very stressed Smokescreen exclaimed, optics unfocused as he scolded Grimlock over the comms.

"Ya just aren't explaining it to him right." Jazz said laughing as Grimlock tried to stare into the hidden camera, but failed to find the correct corner. "Let me help." He said coming over, the two mecha most in charge of the party's entertainment working together to ensure things went smoothly.

Bluestreak chuckled and shook his helm. Well he'd surprise them all. "I gotta go get something, I'll see you guys later." He said heading for the exit.

"Whaaat? But yeh'll miss the show." Jazz exclaimed slightly alarmed and mostly disappointed.

Bluestreak chuckled. "Then I'll try 'n be quick okay? And you fill me in while I'm going." He said and gave Smokescreen a wink. The other praxian gave a faint nod of acknowledgement and returned to the problem of keeping Grimlock from revealing the true purpose of this 'reaction test'. Of all the mecha there only Smokescreen knew what Bluestreak was going to get, and the great trick about to be played on them all.

"Sorry guys, it looks like Grimlock is out of the running." Smokescreen declared as Bluestreak was leaving. "I know you guys bet quite a lot on it being him."

"Me Swoop sad him Prowl no love Grimlock." The Pteranodon said mournfully.

"Him Prowl have bad taste, him Grimlock is best of _all_  Autobots." Sludge asserted stubbornly, loyal to the core.


	17. Trouble with the Landlady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes your landlord is just _determined_ to make trouble for your friends.

There are certain sounds you don't want to wake up to, such as someone yelling 'Fire!', or gunshots, or even maniacal laughter. The voice of your angry landlord when you are behind on rent might not make the top ten, but it is _always_ up there somewhere. She let out a soft groan pulling her pillow over on top of her head. She was _tired_ , been up too late the night before trying to work on her stupid resume and... ugh, was it really almost noon now? It was the weekend, but unemployment means you _don't_ get days off. She really _should_ be back on the hunt for a job again today. Just... after she found out what her landlady was upset about _this_ time.

Changing was quick at least and soon she was up and heading to the door. So... why wasn't her landlady pounding on the door? She frowned as she opened the door and then, seeing the camera mounted on one of the stranger's shoulders, understood what was happening. Reporters. Her _landlady_ was complaining about the broken garage door. A surge of embarrassment went through her at the thought. What would the Autobots, what would _Prowl_ think, when they saw this? Aaaaaagh. It was all happening like she warned them.

Well _she_ would stop it. Plastering a smile on her face that became more sincere as she focused on the Autobots and all the good they did, on the ones she now liked to consider friend, she approached the news reporters, trying to ignore the butterflies in her stomach and just focusing on how much she wanted to help and protect her Autobot friends. It was easier to face down the reporters for someone other than herself.

"Look at this! Top quality garage door! And do they care at all about-" Her landlady was saying.

"Hey Mrs Williams, is there a problem here?" She asked, smiling brightly as she closed the distance between her and the group huddled around the garage door. She whistled idly at the door, as if ignorant of the reporter and camera there (because, honestly, if she let herself dwell on that she'd be toast), and gave her landlady a cheery look. "Still haven't gotten it fixed? I thought you already got the check from the Autobots to replace that." She said sweetly.

Immediately the camera turned to face her, the reporter too, and she could see her landlady glaring at her past them, hating her for stealing her spotlight. She smiled a bit brighter wishing she could just melt into the ground and vanish from everyone's sight. "Are you the renter who lives here?" The reporter asked into the microphone then pointed it at her face.

Easy question. "Yes, Yes I am." She said, with a relieved smile.

The reporter's eyes seemed to gleam with the rush of excitement of finding a top story. "So were you home at the time when the Autobots destroyed the garage door?" And the mic went back to her.

"Of course I was." Her smile was becoming genuine now. "I was asleep when they arrived but the sound woke me up. See they were just trying to get their friend back. I can tell you the _whole_ story if you'd like?" She suggested, turning and walking toward the garage, right past her fuming landlady.

"Oh yes if you please!" The reporter said, the two scurrying after her. She felt her heart lift, a small part of her _hoping_ that the Autobots were watching this, watching as she turned this PR disaster into a success. Now she just had to _say_ it right...

"So the Decepticons attacked our city, or were building some sort of horrible device or building or whatever, don't give me that look, I missed the news report." The reporter looked shocked and opened his mouth to speak but she kept going. "Because I was right near the edge of it. I was working in one of the buildings nearby when it all started. Ended up being one of those evacuated. Anyway, I went back after to find my car and instead I found one of the Autobots, Prowl."

"He was really badly injured because, since his friend Jazz was in danger, he bravely took on Devastator all by himself. You know, that _giant_ Decepticon that is five Decepticons stacked on top of each other, who pancaked the mini-mall. He ended up saving Jazz's life but he was badly badly injured and was lost in the chaos. I found him under a collapsing building and managed to bring him home with me so he'd be safe and told the police I'd found him and to pass it on to the Autobots. They'd seen how badly he'd been injured and since he was unable to contact them himself they were frantic with worry by the time they got word that he'd been found and where to pick him up." She gestured to the damaged garage door. "They only damaged the door because they didn't know how to open it and were so _very_ worried about their injured, practically _dying_ friend. I mean, what would _you_ do if your friend was dying because he did something dangerous to save your life?"

The reporter looked slightly taken aback was was, thankfully, lapping it all up. He moved the mic back to his own face. "So the damages were all accidental as part of trying to rescue one of their own?"

She nodded, giving him a relieved smile. "Yes, that is exactly it. They are giant robots, the garage door was impossibly flimsy to them, might as well have been made of tin foil if you know what I mean." She gave a little laugh.

"Yes, that certainly does make sense. But what about the damages? Why haven't they _paid_ reparations?" The reporter asked and her landlady immediately chimed in with complaints and talking about how _expensive_ it was to replace the garage door and out of her own pocket blah blah blah. As if the garage door wasn't the cheapest money could buy. She made a face at her landlady as the camera focused on the woman.

"They _did_ pay reparations, they have an accident fund, they even wrote you a check and mailed it." She said, giving her landlady a glower, the cameraman shifting so both of them could be in the picture. "I even _saw_ Bluestreak put it in the mail."

"Did someone call my name?" Piped up a cheerful voice. Dang, she hadn't even noticed him approaching, but there he was, transforming at the roadside as the camera quickly swung over to face the robot man.

She grinned. "Bluestreak! Hey, how are you doing?" She piped up. "I was just telling these people that you already sent a check to pay for the damages to the garage door." She wasn't surprised that the camera stayed focused on Bluestreak, transformers were far more interesting than humans to film, and he _was_ the primary focus of this discussion now.

"Aw Gee." He rubbed the back of his helm abashed, wings slanting downward slightly. He really _did_ look a lot like Prowl. "That again? We kept getting complaints so I've actually had to mail two checks now. But they've both been cashed see? So we've paid more than double what the door is worth. I've no idea why she hasn't gotten that fixed yet, she's got the money."

As he had been speaking her landlady had begun to quietly sneak away, but before she could fully escape the camera turned on her again, making her freeze, the reporter addressing her again. "So you have already received double the money needed to repair the garage door?"

Her eyes narrowed, flicking this way and that furtively. "Maaaybe..." She said, in a bit of a mumble, realizing she'd been caught. She tried to quickly cover. "I have lots of renters so I get several checks in the mail often enough, they may have gotten buried." She said trying to look and sound innocent. Then her expression hardened, starting into a sneer. "Besides, they are just big dumb robots, you _really_ expect them to have been able to mail it to the right address?"

She'd had no idea her landlady _hated_ the Autobots, and the woman's venom and disgust hit her hard, almost as if it had been a physical blow. It felt almost like a betrayal. "Hey, that's unfair!" She protested. "Besides! I was _there_! I checked to make sure the address was filled in right!"

Bluestreak rubbed the back of his helm, the metal on metal a bit noisy but not a horrible sound, frowning. "Besides, it was a check, not cash, and doesn't your banking system have a way of preventing people from, what is the term... cashing checks that are for other people? And that is why we've been told to send checks not actual money? So the money can _only_ go to the person it is _meant for_?" His optics seemed to harden as he spoke. It was amazing how emotive two bits of glowing glass could be, his disgust seeming to grow with each word.

"That _is_ correct." The reporter piped up, after a couple seconds of stunned silence. "And more than that, it can be easily _checked_ to see if she really _did_ cash them." He turned toward her landlady, a sort of excited look to him, clearly elated about this story he had stumbled upon. "What do you have to say for yourself Mrs..."

She didn't really hear the rest, she didn't want to stick around to gloat and Bluestreak was gesturing for her to come closer. He even crouched down and spoke softly, so he wouldn't draw the attention of the reporter back to them. "Hey, do you think that was alright?" He asked, sounding anxious, wings flicking slightly.

She chuckled softly. "Yeah, it was fine, you alright though? You got... kinda intense near the end of that."

He huffed softly. "Sorry. I just... it is frustrating when people lie... especially when they are lying to make you look bad." He looked away. "That... is what the Decepticons do too you know... always lying... trying to make themselves look good and good people look like bad guys... We've seen it time and again... and they make people who don't know better trust them, believe them... and then, when they are ready, they show their true colors and turn on those foolish enough to trust them. It... It is just so _frustrating_." He let out a soft growl then sighed.

She patted his knee gently and sighed as well. "It is alright, you did well. I can't imagine what that would be like. Well, I've had people spread nasty stories about me before, but it has never put other people's lives in _danger_ , much less having it go on so long as you have." Their war had lasted what? Millions of years? All of recorded human history was less than five or six thousand years. She'd gotten a book in the library about prehistory and their war predated the _ice ages_ with their woolly mammoths. Apes had barely begun to develop as a _species_ , humanity was barely a distant _dream_ when their war began.

No, talk about something more cheerful, he looked too sad. "So why _are_ you here Blue? This is a residential district, I doubt you were just driving by." She joked with a crooked smile.

To her relief Bluestreak chuckled. "Yeah, I was coming to see you. Prowl has finally woken up and I thought you'd like to see him now."

Her day went from rather awful to fantastic in a moment. "Awake? I was starting to think he'd never wake up!" She laughed and had to keep herself from jumping up and down with excitement.

"Yeah, like Ratchet told you, he prefers to stay in deep stasis until his frame is back to near complete functionality to speed the recovery process." Bluestreak replied chuckling and shaking his helm.

She sobered suddenly. "Is... is it alright for me to visit him? It won't over-stress him right?" And... and what if he didn't _want_ her to visit? What if he didn't want to see her?

Bluestreak laughed. "You worry too much." He said, backing onto the road and transforming, his passenger side door opened. "Hop in, we'll get you there quick."

 

 

  
Prowl huffed rubbing at his optics. He wanted this stupid reaction test to be over, and for them to tell him what it was about already. Were they testing to see if his logic circuits were faulty? Checking that he still knew and recognized everyone? Were they worried that some of his memory chips had been altered? Or was it just because the damaged he'd taken had been so extensive? His processor had been pretty badly fried too after all. If Ratchet thought this ordeal necessary as part of the checks to see if his full functionality had returned, so be it.

 _Still_. It felt like he'd spoken to almost _all_ the Autobots now, even injured Optimus Prime had lumbered in, his sore frame lacking its usual grace. Ugh. He was _exhausted_.

Bluestreak came in again and Prowl gave him a faintly pleading look. Bluestreak chuckled. "Yes, it is over Prowl."

"Thank Primus." Prowl sighed. "So then... are you going to tell me what this was all about? Or Ratchet." He asked, perking up a bit, wings angling slightly upward with relief and hope. Odd that Bluestreak had his hands behind his back though.

Bluestreak chuckled coming closer. "Nah, not me, sorry Prowl. But to make up for it, I _did_ bring you something." He said, with a grin as wide as his face.

Then he pulled his hands out from behind his back.

And _she_ was in them.

Prowl wasn't aware of how the monitor in the other room lit up, his spark squeezing hard, surging with a tempest of emotion. He didn't know that practically all the Autobots on the planet were watching as his optics widened suddenly, jaw slackening without falling open, wings and shoulders slumping slightly with a mixture of shock and awe. He didn't hear the absolute shocked silence that fell over the betting room as his spark fluttered anxiously, adoration and fear of messing things up all but paralyzing his frame. All he was aware of was the bright smile that lit her face, the cheer that made it obvious that she was actually _happy_ to see him, wet optics dancing with mirth.

"Hey Prowl, it is good to meet face to face at last hm?"


End file.
